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

Drazgul

Member
Inquisitor looks incredible.

It doesn't look as good in motion. Animations and character graphics are... well they're pretty terrible (OTOH the backgrounds themselves are rather nice). Production values are rather amateurish in some parts, but there's also a lot of heart in the game. LOTS of dialogue, and from what little I saw (friend bought it, I only played a bit) it is at least decently well-written in the early stages of the game.
 

Corto

Member
These kickstarters are showing devs that people want these open ended RPG's. Maybe now they will realize that DAO sale numbers wasn't a fluke. THERE IS A FANBASE FOR THESE GAMES DAMMIT!

There is. And this reception is proof of that. But this game published by traditional routes would have poor sales and none of those sales would be of thousands or hundreds of dollars. This model is perfect for this.
 

Derrick01

Banned
Dear lord, DAO is one of the dullest and least inspired RPGs I've ever played. More than any other game I can think of it feels like an offline MMO, and the few good ideas that it has are scraped out over the huge length of the game. People whined about the Fade, but I'll play through that twice before I'll go through the Deep Roads. You could cut down the game-time by a third by reducing the volume of unnecessary combat and eliminating the stupid-arse "random" encounters on the roads, and the game would be significantly improved for it.

Yeah DAO is one of the most boring games I've ever played until the last part of it where that meeting takes place. Every region is stretched out about 40% longer than it needed to be.
 

WanderingWind

Mecklemore Is My Favorite Wrapper
Yeah DAO is one of the most boring games I've ever played until the last part of it where that meeting takes place. Every region is stretched out about 40% longer than it needed to be.

Man, I disagree with you so hard it hurts. But hey, at least we're all in agreement that DA2 was shite.
 
Yes but I like to think that Bioware realized that soon after the release of DA:O but they had already committed to the 'Press A for awesome' turn for the franchise.

And now they can't get themselves to admit how wrong they were. And are.

Yeah, and the most comical aspect of it all is that, from all things they're supposed to be looking into Skyrim as an inspiration for DA3. Don't get me wrong, I love Skyrim, but despite being an RPG it's in the exact other end of the spectrum of what BW always does so it's really going to be hard for them to extract a working formula out of it.

If they stopped being so stubborn and just looked at what made DA:O great they could have a solid franchise, but nooo they need button=awesome and streamlining to the max.
 

WanderingWind

Mecklemore Is My Favorite Wrapper
I seriously doubt this. But it's all speculation I guess.

I think it's more of a self-fulfilling prophecy. The one time this generation somebody has thrown an actual budget at the classic CRPG formula, it ended up selling gangbusters. Every other attempt was done by a minor studio and/or with a minuscule marketing budget. It's a revolving door of logic. "Well, these types of games don't sell. We're not going to support them fully." If the properties were handled by somebody who knew what they had in hand, they could sell just fine.
 

Perkel

Banned
Yeah DAO is one of the most boring games I've ever played until the last part of it where that meeting takes place. Every region is stretched out about 40% longer than it needed to be.

DAO did few things good like some characters but aside from that most of game is rather dull. And it isn't even close to BG2 greatness. They created rich and very good lore and they used it in most shitty way. Whole fade, magic, blight, are very amazing concepts but they have some terrile actual story and dialogue writters and they simply failed to use that source material.
 

O.DOGG

Member
Was about to pledge until I saw STEAM. Will not support those fuckers, and I'm not paying $80 for the physical version. I'm oot!

I don't necessarily dislike Steam but I can understand the sentiment. I'd much rather be getting a DRM-free copy of the game than a Steam-based one. Hopefully the physical copy will not be Steam-activated.
 

HoosTrax

Member
This isn't the same Obsidian team that was responsible for NWN2, is it? Yikes...

I hope they learned something about how not to do camera control from that mess.
 
Random thought just popped into my mind. Not that they'd need to, but what if Bioware were to do a Kickstarter for an RPG. Would it be as successful as this one, or even more, or much less?
 

HoosTrax

Member
Random thought just popped into my mind. Not that they'd need to, but what if Bioware were to do a Kickstarter for an RPG. Would it be as successful as this one, or even more, or much less?
What is this Bioware you speak of? You mean EA? I think that's going to devolve into a lot of trolling for the sheer audacity of trying to get Kickstarter funds.
 

Durante

Member
I believe that the effectiveness of NWN2's GUI is where I disagree most with the GAF consensus (at least regarding RPGs). I think that in it's final incarnation (Released with SoZ), it's the best party-based RPG UI bar none.
 

Clott

Member
I was kind of worried when I saw this yesterday and only saw something like 5000$ funded for the project. Glad to see that this is happening!

Backed for 25!
 

Durante

Member
It doesn't scale to high resolutions well at all.

Also, too many windows.
I played it at 1920x1200 and thought it worked wonderfully. And the customization options are my favorite part of it.

Maybe people didn't use the multiple modes feature enough. I had a third-person single-character mode for cities and exploration and a semi-isometric mode for dungeons and battles.
 

HoosTrax

Member
I believe that the effectiveness of NWN2's GUI is where I disagree most with the GAF consensus (at least regarding RPGs). I think that in it's final incarnation (Released with SoZ), it's the best party-based RPG UI bar none.
Whenever I complain about NWN2, people tell me to try the expansions instead. Which I think I do own. NWN2: Platinum? It says on the DLC tab that it includes 2 expansions.

But if it has the same unwieldy camera that the vanilla game uses, I don't see the point of even bothering.
 

water_wendi

Water is not wet!
I believe that the effectiveness of NWN2's GUI is where I disagree most with the GAF consensus (at least regarding RPGs). I think that in it's final incarnation (Released with SoZ), it's the best party-based RPG UI bar none.
i agree with you. After being patched it was fine and have had zero troubles with it. Sometimes i imagine people complaining about it like those informercials where they show black and white footage of someone unable to do a doing a simple task and the person looks so frustrated.

P2Afm.jpg
 

Durante

Member
But if it has the same unwieldy camera that the vanilla game uses, I don't see the point of even bothering.
What exactly did you find unwieldy about the camera? You could use it like a third-person camera, or a character-centered isometric camera, or a free camera, all depending on your needs at any moment during the game. Games like DA or ones that are restricted to isometric only feel terribly restrictive in comparison.
 

HoosTrax

Member
What exactly did you find unwieldy about the camera? You could use it like a third-person camera, or a character-centered isometric camera, or a free camera, all depending on your needs at any moment during the game. Games like DA or ones that are restricted to isometric only feel terribly restrictive in comparison.
But that's the exact type of camera I want. I don't want a character-centered isometric camera. The Infinity Engine isometric view was fine to me. The DA:O isometric view was fine as well.
 

Perkel

Banned
I believe that the effectiveness of NWN2's GUI is where I disagree most with the GAF consensus (at least regarding RPGs). I think that in it's final incarnation (Released with SoZ), it's the best party-based RPG UI bar none.

Durante all that hard work on DSfix is taking toll on your mental health.
just joking :D

NWN GUI was terrible. It was even more shitty than NWN1 one which was already bad.
It wasn't only mechanically not working well but also looked like it wasn't created with art style in mind (same with NWN1).

Camera was worse offender. It was straight bad.
 

water_wendi

Water is not wet!
But that's the exact type of camera I want. I don't want a character-centered isometric camera. The Infinity Engine isometric view was fine to me. The DA:O isometric view was fine as well.
So use that?

Durante all that hard work on DSfix is taking toll on your mental health.
just joking :D

NWN GUI was terrible. It was even more shitty than NWN1 one which was already bad.
It wasn't only mechanically not working well but also looked like it wasn't created with art style in mind (same with NWN1).

Camera was worse offender. It was straight bad.
GUI is leagues above NWN1 just based on context sensitive dropboxes.
 

Durante

Member
But that's the exact type of camera I want. I don't want a character-centered isometric camera. The Infinity Engine isometric view was fine to me. The DA:O isometric view was fine as well.
Then just keep it at that setting and never change to any of the other modes? That should give you what you want.

Durante all that hard work on DSfix is taking toll on your mental health.
just joking :D
It's a much older affliction than that ;)

Here's a post from 2009 where I try to explain how to use the NWN2 UI. Sadly the image links are dead.

Edit:
Found the images!

 

HoosTrax

Member
Then just keep it at that setting and never change to any of the other modes? That should give you what you want.
None of the camera modes work like that.

Exploration Mode = Overhead centered on character
Strategy Mode = Overhead, but starts to center on character when the character approaches the edge of viewable area (this is not the behavior I want -- I want full control over where the camera is looking at all times)
Character Mode = Third person
 

water_wendi

Water is not wet!
None of the camera modes work like that.

Exploration Mode = Overhead centered on character
Strategy Mode = Overhead, but starts to center on character when the character approaches the edge of viewable area (this is not the behavior I want -- I want full control over where the camera is looking at all times)
Character Mode = Third person

Huh? i dont have the game installed right now (and im leaving for work so me checking it out will have to wait until tonight.) but i do not remember the camera centering on the character once i got to the edges. That doesnt sound right at all.
 
Yeah DAO is one of the most boring games I've ever played until the last part of it where that meeting takes place. Every region is stretched out about 40% longer than it needed to be.

DA:O definitely had its moments of bloat but at least something like the Deep Roads being a long slog made sense story wise.

Origins had its share of problems but it was at least a decent starting point for an old school RPG franchise. And then Dragon Age 2 came along...
 

Perkel

Banned
Then just keep it at that setting and never change to any of the other modes? That should give you what you want.

It's a much older affliction than that ;)


Edit:
Found the images!

I acknowledged what you said, problem is not with what you described but with junk involved in it. For example Diablo like LMB mode it works but as you are using characters they are not precise or responsive and offen blocks on stupid things like chair. It is painfull to use.

Isometric camera is working like junk too. It is not free, it is not responsive.

Biggest problem for me is GUI use of space.

There is absolutely no reason to make journall, character stats screens small and not full screen or half screen.

They made UI easly configurable but thanks to that they lost any sence of positioning in default layout and i really didn't find any way to relayout UI to be not bothersome. Also thanks to that UI looks tasteless.
 

Perkel

Banned
None of the camera modes work like that.

Exploration Mode = Overhead centered on character
Strategy Mode = Overhead, but starts to center on character when the character approaches the edge of viewable area (this is not the behavior I want -- I want full control over where the camera is looking at all times)
Character Mode = Third person

I may remeber wrong they did release patch to fix that but still after a patch there is really no camera like in IE games (meaning precise, free and responsive)
 

Perkel

Banned
Looks like 1million in 24 hours will happen, but reaching the goal won't. Should still make for good headlines!

Still it is amazing imo. Looks like it will be biggest game kickstarter yet.

It really now depends what stretch goals will they reveal. We will know in few hours :D


Looks like money started to flowing faster. 5k in 2min.

985K$ 57 minutes to go.
 

Tobor

Member
Who are the 500 people who backed the $25 tier? The $20 tier hasn't sold out yet, and there is no difference in what you get. Weird.
 

duckroll

Member
Who are the 500 people who backed the $25 tier? The $20 tier hasn't sold out yet, and there is no difference in what you get. Weird.

By not taking up a slot in the $20 tier, they are giving people who might want to give $20 but not more than that a chance to fill those slots.
 

Derrick01

Banned
Man, I disagree with you so hard it hurts. But hey, at least we're all in agreement that DA2 was shite.

True. One of the few things everyone can agree with on here ;)

DAO did few things good like some characters but aside from that most of game is rather dull. And it isn't even close to BG2 greatness. They created rich and very good lore and they used it in most shitty way. Whole fade, magic, blight, are very amazing concepts but they have some terrile actual story and dialogue writters and they simply failed to use that source material.

I didn't have a problem with any of the story material or dialogue. My problem with these games, and this goes back even to the golden era of the late 90s, is that I despise dice roll combat. It's probably the single thing I hate most about video games if we talk about nothing but gameplay. So when each of DAO's combat areas went on for over an hour each it was pure torture for me.

People like to rag on the Fade but that was actually one of the more "pleasant" combat areas in the whole game because it was more limited, and if you know what you're doing you can get through the maze quickly. You can't skip through the deep roads or the forest/ruins areas.
 
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