Eternity Josh Sawyer reflects on his failures with Pillars of Eternity

[hexer]

The man also looks like a complete psychopath

someone should check his basement. theres something in these eyes i dont know man.

I can already see the headlines:

"The final level: Feargus Urquhart's home dungeon"

"The Dark Lord's true identity revealed"

"RPG studio CEO's LARP session goes too far"

Judging from the thread, Sawyer may have been unsuccessful in making Deadfire a financial success, but he was certainly successful in ending fun.

I think he's reading this thread and contemplating his life

 

[overly excitable young man]

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Backpfeifengesicht

 

[vortex]

The best thing about this news is that Pillars of Eternity 3 will definitely be a first person rpg!

That's the worst thing ever!

 

[Prime Junta]

The best thing about this news is that Pillars of Eternity 3 will definitely be a first person rpg!

ok zoomer

 

[holla_cabezas_de_mierda]

My suggestion is to abandon the PoE brand. It's worthless. Start fro Scratch, get a pre-implemented ruleset like OGL and write good stories. But yeah, who am I kidding.

people are making this too complicated. The main issue started with josh not liking D&D and deciding to make up his own "fuck you suck my dick, the RPG 1.0" and shove it down all our throats instead of just using OGL as you suggest. Somehow he was perfectly capable of making enjoyable games with Icewind 1 and 2. The shit fell apart with him having too much freedom to do whatever he wanted, and this began with his home made rules which not only were bad themselves, but an incredible wast of time, money, talent and energy to implement and code on top of being boring and nothing anybody asked for or wanted outside of some obscure fanbois.

so yes, I actually agree with the OGL license thing. I believe it could have possibly changed the entire history of POE, since it is in fact when Josh actually has some guidelines and framework that he has a documented history of producing very good work. Even the PoE work itself is technically and artistically first rate, just as icewind dale series was.

 

[Trashos]

Most of Avellone's work is from good to excellent. You are blaming him for not reaching god-tier levels all the time, and you are disregarding the fact that he is still better than almost everyone else when he doesn't.

Dead Money is freaking amazing, btw. Less imaginative than PST, but a more mature work. Let me know where you get all those writers who can write a Dean Domino.

 

[overly excitable young man]

Guys who care for writing in RPGs are taking all this too seriously.
Read a good book.

 

[holla_cabezas_de_mierda]

I haven't played D:OS 2, so I don't know if it was good or not, but if it was, I'm sure the sequel will do anywhere from a little less successful, to even more successful, depending on how people liked it.

For me the reception of D:OS2 was more than a bit confusing. Personally i found the game compelling for the first 4-6 hours or so but then i rapidly lost interest when i discovered that the writing wasn't getting better, the systems were shit and the itemization one of the worst to grace any computer game. Every single one of my friends that played the game more or less shared my sentiments and no-one made it far off the starting island. I honestly don't know a single person that actually liked the game but somehow it's universally praised.

yeah there is something really odd with that game. It has an overwhelming positive review on steam, its pretty hard for me to believe people like it that much. It a fairly awful game IMO. I can see morons giving it a good score, but the near 100% positive flood of reviews it gets month after month is really strange.

 

[HanoverF]

Josh went from teetotaler to day drinker after just one massive RPG failure.

 

[Verylittlefishes]

Guys who care for writing in RPGs are taking all this too seriously.
Read a good book.

You mean, buy Disco Elysium?

 

[hexer]

Josh went from teetotaler to day drinker after just one massive RPG failure.

Let's hope alcohol turns him into a better game designer

 

[Trashos]

Guys who care for writing in RPGs are taking all this too seriously.
Read a good book.

You are right. Why would we care about good writing in an Obsidian thread. What was I thinking.

 

[holla_cabezas_de_mierda]

No wonder he’s slugging those red bull & vodkas. That’s gotta suck.

If I could reach Josh this is what I’d tell him:

Find your heart. Listen to it. Follow it. The rest will follow. If it tells you that you need to revolutionise the world of time management software, care and feeding of obsolete Italian cars, or to invent a new type of derailleur, do it. Stop working to please other people, whether it’s Fearg, Kate, or an imaginary public of gamers. I know some Estonians who can help.

Maybe he is already following your advice and Alcohol is where his heart truly is at.

Interesting, josh is or was straight...

 

[overly excitable young man]

Guys who care for writing in RPGs are taking all this too seriously.
Read a good book.

You are right. Why would we care about good writing in an Obsidian thread. What was I thinking.

I thought this was just the typical "PoE is shit" thread. (as is every thread here)

 

[hexer]

Might be a solid thing, might be a daydream.. time will tell

 

[Lacrymas]

How are they expensive (in development time) to make?

 

[holla_cabezas_de_mierda]

Why did the post sound like a confession of a crybaby? "I failed once, so I will not even try again! I can't do it, I caaan't!"

I know Josh is a bit of a... well, this wasn't something I expected from him.

he is butthurt maybe because he really thought people would like his cool RPG system he has been working on since 7th grade if they were just forced to try it. I think he thought, like many liberals, that if the stupid masses were just forced to do what is best, that they would eventually come around. Well the dumb proles never came around, so now he is moving to Canada.

 

[fantadomat]

How are they expensive (in development time) to make?

writing and voice acting. People get burned out and can't make a decent companion after time,thus it needs a lot of work. Obsidian writers on the other hand,can't make a decent character even without getting burned out.

 

[Butter]

How are they expensive to make?

The writing, I suppose. Even if you're not going full MCA, you probably want to write banter between companions, let them chime in during quest dialogues, have the usual background and lore dumps, then companion quests with multiple endings. I don't see how it should be "extremely expensive", but it should involve collaboration between all the writers and quest designers.

 

[DalekFlay]

Spent way too much time reading through the PC Gamer comments on this story. I was surprised by how many "normals" said they were turned off by the pirate setting.

 

[Heroic Liberator]

Spent way too much time reading through the PC Gamer comments on this story. I was surprised by how many "normals" said they were turned off by the pirate setting.

It was less of a pirate setting and more of a colonial setting featuring pirates (namely the Principi) and - depending on your view - mediocre to shit ship mechanics, particularly in terms of naval combat.

 

[Lacrymas]

Writing seems to me the fastest part of game development, though. Unless you don't work for months on end and then write 3 sentences. How can you even begin content/area design development when the writing isn't at least semi-done? Do the area designers design a zone and then everything is written around that? Seems counter-intuitive, but it still wouldn't mean the writing itself takes a lot of time.

Do they think of themselves as some kind of genius auteurs that need a lot of time to think through their characters? That's laughable.

 

[fantadomat]

Spent way too much time reading through the PC Gamer comments on this story. I was surprised by how many "normals" said they were turned off by the pirate setting.

It was less of a pirate setting and more of a colonial setting featuring pirates (namely the Principi) and - depending on your view - mediocre to shit ship mechanics, particularly in terms of naval combat.

To be honest,the setting could have worked out if it was written well....but we got obsidian . It would have been a good game if was focused on faction expansion and conquering each other than running after a massive statue that waits for you for years to progress the main quest. Cut out all the pretentious god garbage and make the story about an opportunistic bastard trying to make something out of his life,and you will have a ten times better game. Neither the ship combat or the sawyer's authistic mechanics were that bad to put people off the game...if it only had a good writer.

 

[hexer]

It was less of a pirate setting and more of a colonial setting featuring pirates (namely the Principi) and - depending on your view - mediocre to shit ship mechanics, particularly in terms of naval combat.

It's hard to imagine what they were thinking considering a 3D naval combat template for Unity costs $75.
FFS I'd probably have more fun if they implemented naval combat in the form of a Battleship game

 

[fantadomat]

Writing seems to me the fastest part of game development, though. Unless you don't work for months on end and then write 3 sentences. How can you even begin content/area design development when the writing isn't at least semi-done? Do the area designers design a zone and then everything is written around that? Seems counter-intuitive, but it still wouldn't mean the writing itself takes a lot of time.

Do they think of themselves as some kind of genius auteurs that need a lot of time to think through their characters? That's laughable.

You are talking from the point of view of a person with general imagination,not from the view of american university graduate working in a conveyor belt industry where imagination and creativity are taboo. Most of those people work that because their parents told them that it makes money,they don't have any passion!