Eternity Avowed - Obsidian's first person action-RPG in the Pillars of Eternity setting

[frajaq]

Avowed is more fun to play than Oblivion

 

[Ibn Sina]

You can actually see the degradation of writing and dropping pretenses of trying to be "different and unique"

In dead fire all raw food items had different names than their real life counterpart in a histrionic attempt to be deep. Pineapple is crown fruit, Coconut is Palm stone etc

Here they dropped all pretenses and called the fruit and vegetables their real names. Tomato, Cucumber, Carrot, Cabbage, Potato

 

[Lacrymas]

Here they dropped all pretenses and called the fruit and vegetables their real names. Tomato, Cucumber, Carrot, Cabbage, Potato

That's because Sawyer isn't involved to autism all over the project. Which is unfortunate, but we all knew this was going to be a shit game.

 

[Gangrelrumbler]

If they didn't want to bother with fallout of player going full postal in the middle of the city they should've just disabled using your weapons and spells while in towns. It's not like you can attack every NPC in all RPG games out there. Most JRPGs simply don't account for that and neither do Pathfinder games, Cyberpunk disables firing whenever you point your gun at an actually important NPCs and people weren't bitching about that.

 

[Roguey]

itt: why is Unreal not Gamebryo?

Daniel Vavra may be a foolish clown, but he was informed enough to recognize that Unreal is a poor fit for these kinds of big RPGs https://www.windowscentral.com/gami...er-4-has-a-long-road-ahead-on-unreal-engine-5

In an interview from 11 months ago, the co-founder of Warhorse Studios, Daniel Vávra, was asked why he chose Cry Engine to power Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 versus something like Unreal Engine. "At the time, nothing else could handle it like this, and to be fair, Unreal couldn't run it even today," Daniel said in February of 2024.

He continued, "I talked with guys who are making The Witcher or from studios that are just trying to make some open-world games on Unreal because there aren't really any open-world games on Unreal. Assassin's Creed, everything like that, is on their own engine."

"CD Projekt just switched to Unreal. Even though, in my opinion, they had a good proprietary engine. I talked to someone whose name I obviously can't say, and I said to him, 'So how about Unreal?' 'Great, we already have pieces done, like some landscapes.' And I said, well, what about the open world? 'Not yet.' When did they announce it? A year or two ago, and it still doesn't work?"
...
Daniel later mentioned that Unreal Engine simply wasn't made for open-world games, nor terrain generation, "If you wanted to make a game on Unreal from some rocks, that's great, but it couldn't do trees for a long time. Their nanite couldn't generate vegetation until now. Now it can." Looking at you, Satisfactory.

He goes on to detail the amazing videos of trees and the life-like nature of the vegetation that's produced in Unreal Engine 5 but hammers it for performance. "Until you look at some demo and realize that while it looks absolutely divine. Photos, just like a movie. Then you need a computer that costs two hundred grands (8000 Euro), and a maximum of four people can walk there because otherwise, even the damn computer that costs two hundred grand will not be able to run it."

Obsidian, inXile, Hardsuit/The Chinese Room, CD Projekt, Rebel Wolves, even Pithead (if they actually make it to ship ) all walking off the Unreal cliff.

OK, but I specifically said "production value". You don't need a huge budget or team to produce an RPG that focuses on story and choice and roleplaying. You don't make a first-person action RPG on UE5 if those are your priorities. They wanted to make a shitzillion dollars, and it never occurred to them that they should attempt to match the production value of comparable titles? This is actually a pretty dire situation. This is Obsidian management having zero understanding of what the audience wants, and this is when Microsoft have to come in and fire all of the owners and seniors at Obsidian.

I don't understand what you mean by production values. I watched a few seconds of that video to see his first complaint was that in Avowed arrows aren't physical objects with their own physics. That's not production values, it comes from an immersive sim design philosophy.

Also Avowed's performance is bad enough as it is, they don't need physical objects flinging everywhere and sticking around making it worse.

 

[Crispy]

So what do they call a vampire in Avowed, then?

 

[ropetight]

Troonyr.

 

[GloomFrost]

That's actually fair. Obsidian never had any peaks, just ups and downs.

Now it's all downs, all the way to the bottom.

Well I dont know about "peaks, ups or downs". But can I have anything even remotely close to MoTB or KOTOR 2 writing wise at least. Hell, I ll even take another tyranny or AP.... actually even Dungeon Siege 3 doesn't look too bad bad now. The quality drop of Obsidian games after White March expansions is absolutely staggering.

 

[Necrensha]

Eripmav.

 

[Crispy]

It was a trick question. There are no vampires in Avowed because vampires are a symbol of patriarchal oppression. They represent rape and violence against women and ARE NOT TO BE TOLERATED OR EVEN ACKNOWLEDGED I DON'T CARE WHAT JOSH SAYS.

 

[ArchAngel]

If they didn't want to bother with fallout of player going full postal in the middle of the city they should've just disabled using your weapons and spells while in towns. It's not like you can attack every NPC in all RPG games out there. Most JRPGs simply don't account for that and neither do Pathfinder games, Cyberpunk disables firing whenever you point your gun at an actually important NPCs and people weren't bitching about that.

Stalker 2 also disabled shooting at important NPCs. I tried to shoot Strelok the other day just to see if the game allows it.

 

[Roguey]

"Avowed is so lifeless"

Meanwhile in Hogwarts Legacy, also made in Unreal



Maybe the lesson here is that they should just make third person games because people associate the first person perspective too much with Bethesda now and have Bethesda-expectations even if you say over and over again that you're not trying to be Skyrim (doesn't help that journalists kept bringing up Skyrim).

 

[Ryzer]

That's actually fair. Obsidian never had any peaks, just ups and downs.

Now it's all downs, all the way to the bottom.

Well I dont know about "peaks, ups or downs". But can I have anything even remotely close to MoTB or KOTOR 2 writing wise at least. Hell, I ll even take another tyranny or AP.... actually even Dungeon Siege 3 doesn't look too bad bad now. The quality drop of Obsidian games after White March expansions is absolutely staggering.

 

[Sweeper]

Alright, come on, fess up, who's playing this pile of garbage?
And why the fuck are you doing that to yourself?

 

[Shaki]

Eh there is no point to playing this slop, it's the same story as with Veilguard - so souless and boring even shitting on it isn't fun. Just let it die and be forgotten.

 

[Orange Clock]

If they didn't want to bother with fallout of player going full postal in the middle of the city they should've just disabled using your weapons and spells while in towns. It's not like you can attack every NPC in all RPG games out there. Most JRPGs simply don't account for that and neither do Pathfinder games, Cyberpunk disables firing whenever you point your gun at an actually important NPCs and people weren't bitching about that.

You need your spells and weapons to break walls or smth, and a lot of them are in cities/towns.

 

[Orange Clock]

Alright, come on, fess up, who's playing this pile of garbage?
And why the fuck are you doing that to yourself?

Combat is good, exploration is fine

 

[Fedora Master]

just hideous, boring

Well the man loves anime too

 

[Fedora Master]

How about a tag for the poor misguided souls that have played and possibly even spent money on this game?
I'm thinking something along the lines of AIDS - Avowed Induced Delirium Syndrome?

 

[Thalstarion]

A good way to tell if someone is genuinely a fan of RPG's or not is their reaction to a game not having a 'good path', a 'neutral path' and an 'evil path' for most quests.

It isn't terribly difficult to come up with at least three distinct paths through a particular quest that manage to play into different moral standings. Yet so many modern RPG's are deliberately removing anything remotely dark or controversial to appease the dysgenic nutters who don't even flock to these games in high numbers.

Even very watered down RPG's like Skyrim have more interaction with the game world. If you find a particular character to be annoying or you just want to role-play your character as a ruthless serial killer then it is viable to embrace such a path. Hell, as infested with nonsense as Baldur's Gate 3 is you can go through that and kill off pretty much anyone there as well. Quite brutally, even.

So it isn't unreasonable to expect such players to be catered to. I'd wager there's more people interested in an edgy route through any given game than there are those desperate for pronouns to be a priority.

 

[Tuco Benedicto Pacifico]

Maybe the lesson here is that they should just make third person games because people associate the first person perspective too much with Bethesda now and have Bethesda-expectations even if you say over and over again that you're not trying to be Skyrim (doesn't help that journalists kept bringing up Skyrim).

Maybe the other take away is that what you are "trying to be" matters only up to a point.

Whatever shit you are trying to be, people will inevitably compare your game with other ones more or less in the same genre.
And when yours comes short in terms of tech, visual presentation, immersion/simulation, writing, UI and core gameplay mechanics, your redeeming quality is supposed to be... Which one, exactly?

 

[Grampy_Bone]

As the artists in the trenches like to gripe about on Glassdoor, they're all about story/narrative/role-playing over all else. Like how this site used to be.

If this game is as player choice driven and as reactive as Alpha Protocol, I'll buy it. Heck, if it has even 50% of that kind of story i'd be shocked as hell.

If there's even one "Save Paul Denton" moment in the game, I'll give you $100.

 

[Inec0rn]

I don't get Obsidian popularity or why people think this Sawyer dude is good.

Esp. when you play something like undertail or Skald and you realise solo Dev on food stamps makes better games and better writing etc.

 

[Orange Clock]

A good way to tell if someone is genuinely a fan of RPG's or not is their reaction to a game not having a 'good path', a 'neutral path' and an 'evil path' for most quests.

It isn't terribly difficult to come up with at least three distinct paths through a particular quest that manage to play into different moral standings. Yet so many modern RPG's are deliberately removing anything remotely dark or controversial to appease the dysgenic nutters who don't even flock to these games in high numbers.

Even very watered down RPG's like Skyrim have more interaction with the game world. If you find a particular character to be annoying or you just want to role-play your character as a ruthless serial killer then it is viable to embrace such a path. Hell, as infested with nonsense as Baldur's Gate 3 is you can go through that and kill off pretty much anyone there as well. Quite brutally, even.

So it isn't unreasonable to expect such players to be catered to. I'd wager there's more people interested in an edgy route through any given game than there are those desperate for pronouns to be a priority.

I don’t think that’s that necessarily a case(maybe in case of DAV it is), it’s more like developers don’t want you to play their games like you want, skip the content they spend so much time crafting, not hear their ideas.
I think Avellone is to blame for this

Also, you can’t kill a lot of named NPC in Skyrim. But it’s probably due to Bethesda laziness and “good enough” philosophy.

 

[frajaq]

So far the available paths are very binary, as an Envoy of Aedyr, do you go full Follow the Law, Oppress the Locals and Hang Rebels, or you are Basically Nice to the locals and try to show Paradis rebels not everyone from Aedyr is an asshole. Since your main objective is going after the Dreamscourge after all