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

[markec]

The question you really have to answer: Who was Avowed made for?

-Not designed for Pillars fans (not isometric or party based)
-Not designed for hardcore Codex-level RPG fans (too simplistic, bare-bones, and shallow)
-Not designed for dude-bro shooter/live service fans (no multiplayer)
-Not designed for Diablo/Path of Exile players (no loot, classes, or endgame)
-Not designed for normie AAA consoomers (no open world)
-Not designed for women (too much combat)
-Not designed for blacks (no sports, cars, or "black girl magic")

The best you can say is it's Gamepass filler, aka a race to the bottom.

Its made for Obsidian fanboys who would buy anything and normie suckers that buy anything gaming websites recommend.

 

[Gandalf]

The question you really have to answer: Who was Avowed made for?

-Not designed for Pillars fans (not isometric or party based)
-Not designed for hardcore Codex-level RPG fans (too simplistic, bare-bones, and shallow)
-Not designed for dude-bro shooter/live service fans (no multiplayer)
-Not designed for Diablo/Path of Exile players (no loot, classes, or endgame)
-Not designed for normie AAA consoomers (no open world)
-Not designed for women (too much combat)
-Not designed for blacks (no sports, cars, or "black girl magic")

The best you can say is it's Gamepass filler, aka a race to the bottom.

Its made for Obsidian fanboys who would buy anything and normie suckers that buy anything gaming websites recommend.

The game was also made for Obisidian Entertainment themselves.

 

[Quillon]

If this is unavoidable/if history's gonna repeat; I hope MS won't cancel it before release, despite its issues AP was worth playing :D

So, how do you feel now?

Well this time around they didn't have the serious talent to fallback on, instead they turned to Carrie Patel of all their employees

 

[Roguey]

Who was Avowed made for?

I discussed this many pages ago, it was made for Feargus Urquhart and Carrie Patel.

 

[Sòren]

Yeah, I think the closest comparison to Avowed is Dragon Age 2 - the combat sometimes slips into being mindless fun and you can sort of imagine how the combat systems could be part of a good game, but the actual experience of playing it consists of coming up against dull writing and really bad encounter design over and over again until any fun you were having ends up getting drained away after a few hours, and the sheer amount of combat you're forced into ends up making the mechanics wear thin.

based on the footages, it reminds a lot of eurojank games like The Dark Eye Demonicon or Venetica. just a lot less charming and with less features. and those do not leave that foul DEI taste in your mouth as well.

i would recommend anyone to play those instead.

 

[Grampy_Bone]

Feargus Urquhart

Feargus likes big titties though.

 

[Quillon]

If you read what they say you can deduce they won't make a game with the whole studio any time soon. They have an ongoing game(Grounded, is it still ongoing?), an unfinished game, they'll maybe do DLCs for the finished game now and if its up to them they wanna continue like this. Divide & con.. make games and hope for mild successes.

Gonzalez' hiring is puzzling tho; imo its likely they re-hired him for a new project that's not TOW or Avowed(and not Fallout confirmed) but in any case I doubt they'll make a much bigger scope game with him.

They already had part of the studio developing Outer Worlds while they pitched and rescaled Avowed, unless you think the studio will forever making Outer Worlds and Avowed sequels exactly at same scope, which is an odd thing to assume, then why would they not make another game? Clearly the fact that they hired Gonzalez as a director means they want to make something else that's not Outer Worlds or Avowed, unless he is here for Pentiment 2 replacing Sawyer for some reason there is every reason to believe they are going to make something else. I don't see any reason to think they won't do anything else, particularly because Microsoft probably expects them to do a variety of games to fill out gamepass.

You also have to remember this comes after they have had a troublesome launch with Deadfire that they put a lot of resources into and almost bombed entirely only recovering the sales on long run. If anything I am more worried that they'll never make a cRPG again, instead of never making a first person RPG, frankly the latter seems less likely than former at the moment. I do love Owlcat and I have put a lot of hours into WOTR in particular but their very epic main story focused games are not exactly what Obsidian does, I do like side content and Owlcat just don't do it their games they don't even have city hubs with dialogue-centered quests everything is combat.

Like I can get the criticism about Obsidian's dry writing, their inability to land a big story and issues with envisioning likeable companions (or romance, apparently) but this doomsaying about how they'll forever make Outer Worlds and Avowed seems unlikely to say the least.

I said "its likely they re-hired him for a new project that's NOT TOW or Avowed".

I think Pentiment is a one & done gaym, doubt they'll let Sawya waste another 3-4 years on another small gaym that no one cares about, they shoulda realized now they don't have anybody else to direct an RPG competently. Gonna shelf one of their IPs in the next cycle for this new project; cos of timing its prolly gonna be TOW after they release the sequel.

Its unlikely but if anybody can I bet Sawya could make Fergie give him both teams if assumed Sawya-Gonzalez project has a hint of ambition.

 

[Roguey]

Feargus likes big titties though.

He gave up on this after both his employees within the studio and the Project Eternity Kickstarter backers rebelled against boobplate. No sense in fighting against the tide.

 

[Butter]

The question you really have to answer: Who was Avowed made for?

-Not designed for Pillars fans (not isometric or party based)
-Not designed for hardcore Codex-level RPG fans (too simplistic, bare-bones, and shallow)
-Not designed for dude-bro shooter/live service fans (no multiplayer)
-Not designed for Diablo/Path of Exile players (no loot, classes, or endgame)
-Not designed for normie AAA consoomers (no open world)
-Not designed for women (too much combat)
-Not designed for blacks (no sports, cars, or "black girl magic")

The best you can say is it's Gamepass filler, aka a race to the bottom.

It's made to trick people who see "Obsidian first-person RPG" and get excited because they liked New Vegas.

 

[Orange Clock]

Feargus likes big titties though.

He gave up on this after both his employees within the studio and the Project Eternity Kickstarter backers rebelled against boobplate. No sense in fighting against the tide.

Are the employees you referring to Avellone and Sawyer?

 

[JarlFrank]

Feargus likes big titties though.

He gave up on this after both his employees within the studio and the Project Eternity Kickstarter backers rebelled against boobplate. No sense in fighting against the tide.

In the biggest slam dunk possible, Feargus backed down on the ONE thing that could have kept Obsidian relevant!

Truly a master of business decisions.

 

[Infinitron]

Live with Josh Sawyer: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/2388422071

 

[Red Rogue]

The question you really have to answer: Who was Avowed made for?

-Not designed for Pillars fans (not isometric or party based)
-Not designed for hardcore Codex-level RPG fans (too simplistic, bare-bones, and shallow)
-Not designed for dude-bro shooter/live service fans (no multiplayer)
-Not designed for Diablo/Path of Exile players (no loot, classes, or endgame)
-Not designed for normie AAA consoomers (no open world)
-Not designed for women (too much combat)
-Not designed for blacks (no sports, cars, or "black girl magic")

The best you can say is it's Gamepass filler, aka a race to the bottom.

My suspicion is that normie AAA was exactly the target. You say no open world, and that's true, but it's also true that market preferences have been significantly shifting away from bloated open worlds. Ubisoft built their entire organization around that model and their implosion is the most recent evidence of the trend.

 

[Roguey]

Are the employees you referring to Avellone and Sawyer?

Yes, and probably a bunch of others, all these peoples' politics are more or less the same.

 

[SayMyName]

 

[jaekl]

Is he unemployed now? Why is he begging for money online like a homeless person

 

[Assisted Living Godzilla]

The question you really have to answer: Who was Avowed made for?

-Not designed for Pillars fans (not isometric or party based)
-Not designed for hardcore Codex-level RPG fans (too simplistic, bare-bones, and shallow)
-Not designed for dude-bro shooter/live service fans (no multiplayer)
-Not designed for Diablo/Path of Exile players (no loot, classes, or endgame)
-Not designed for normie AAA consoomers (no open world)
-Not designed for women (too much combat)
-Not designed for blacks (no sports, cars, or "black girl magic")

The best you can say is it's Gamepass filler, aka a race to the bottom.

It is weird they didn’t keep the isometric perspective of their Pillars of Eternity games even with the move into action game combat. I know Skyrim sold a whole lot and they’re after that Skyrim dollar, (although even if Avowed was fantastic, it was never doing anything close to what Skyrim did on release) but Diablo 3 sold extremely well as well.

They could’ve definitely turned around an isometric Avowed for less money and faster than the almost seven years they spent making Avowed.

 

[luj1]

It is weird they didn’t keep the isometric perspective

 

[Butter]

New peak player count of 18,658. Suck it chuds. Looks like Avowed is a big winner after all.

 

[Assisted Living Godzilla]

It is weird they didn’t keep the isometric perspective

I know Skyrim sold a whole lot and they’re after that Skyrim dollar, (although even if Avowed was fantastic, it was never doing anything close to what Skyrim did on release) but Diablo 3 sold extremely well as well.

 

[Tenebris]

The question you really have to answer: Who was Avowed made for?

-Not designed for Pillars fans (not isometric or party based)
-Not designed for hardcore Codex-level RPG fans (too simplistic, bare-bones, and shallow)
-Not designed for dude-bro shooter/live service fans (no multiplayer)
-Not designed for Diablo/Path of Exile players (no loot, classes, or endgame)
-Not designed for normie AAA consoomers (no open world)
-Not designed for women (too much combat)
-Not designed for blacks (no sports, cars, or "black girl magic")

The best you can say is it's Gamepass filler, aka a race to the bottom.

It is weird they didn’t keep the isometric perspective of their Pillars of Eternity games even with the move into action game combat. I know Skyrim sold a whole lot and they’re after that Skyrim dollar, (although even if Avowed was fantastic, it was never doing anything close to what Skyrim did on release) but Diablo 3 sold extremely well as well.

They could’ve definitely turned around an isometric Avowed for less money and faster than the almost seven years they spent making Avowed.

Isometric perspective and no parkour would have allowed them to do so much more too. Like having more playable races. But what's done is done. If Obsidian is smart they'll just iterate on what they have with Avowed, rather then rebuilding it like they did for Deadfire. Though if we do get a Pillars 3 someday it'll likely be very different too.

 

[luj1]

It is weird they didn’t keep the isometric perspective

I know Skyrim sold a whole lot and they’re after that Skyrim dollar, (although even if Avowed was fantastic, it was never doing anything close to what Skyrim did on release) but Diablo 3 sold extremely well as well.

so it's not weird, it's understandable (and sad) they want that TES cake

 

[Rincewind]

Just clicked through a longplay for a minute or two, nothing I saw excited me.

Superficial impressions:

- Meh artstyle (just seems wrong, some scenes look like a Disney cartoon, some are too desaturated)
- Sterile voice acting
- Cutscenes, cutscenes, cutscenes
- Too much EPIC!!!! I'm tired of EPIC. Why does every single hit with a sword has to sound like an earthquake...
- Generic "bombastic" orchestral score. Boring.

Seems boring overall. Pass.

I wish people started doing unique stuff. Like some wonky non-polished artstyle, pretty much any imaginable music that's not EPIC ORCHESTRAL (so boring, man, I can't even begin), and so on.

 

[Assisted Living Godzilla]

It is weird they didn’t keep the isometric perspective

I know Skyrim sold a whole lot and they’re after that Skyrim dollar, (although even if Avowed was fantastic, it was never doing anything close to what Skyrim did on release) but Diablo 3 sold extremely well as well.

so it's not weird, it's understandable (and sad) they want that TES cake

No, it is weird, because Diablo 3 was also a humongous seller that Obsidian Entertainment would be more than happy to get a slice of the sells pie of.

Making an isometric action game would also allow them to keep the exact same aesthetic as the games it’s related, they likely would’ve got the game out years earlier, and they most definitely could’ve done it for less than they spent on this shit. So yeah, from a business perspective, it’s pretty fucking weird. In a world where isometric action game Diablo 3 can sell over 30 million in around three years, an isometric action game is just as valid of a money making venture as chasing Skyrim; and you can chase one of those things for far less money.

 

[luj1]

Diablo 3 was also a humongous seller

yeah nothing to do with Blizzard and the Diablo name dude, only isometric perspective lol