Pre-release Pillars of Eternity quotes (or: Josh Sawyer writing checks Obsidian can't cash)

[Sensuki]

Encounter design is directly influenced by both system and creature design, which are both not very good anyway.

 

[Volrath]

Look, I don't deny that Obsidian put a lot of effort, dedication & love into PoE. They just didn't put it at the right places.

What does that even mean?

 

[felipepepe]

Look, I don't deny that Obsidian put a lot of effort, dedication & love into PoE. They just didn't put it at the right places.

What does that even mean?

The Inn thing Infinitron mentioned is a good example. It's an effort to push things forward, to expand on something that no other RPG ever thought about. Cool. But should you really be worrying about that when basic things like the encounter design suck balls?

 

[Shevek]

I think the way they prototype the game ("vertical slices") lends itself to designing not just combat but also rest and other systems simultanously.

 

[AwesomeButton]

I would have liked BG games more regardless of whether I've played them before, during or after trying out PoE, therefore what you propose is not interesting to me.

Hear, hear! That's getting confirmed right now for me. Just the Duergar battle in Irenicus' dungeon tells a new player all he needs to know about IE games combat vs PoE combat, after he's played PoE. PoE combat is shit.

One of it is the setting/lore, regardless of the execution (infodumps and whatever) or whether you like it or not it's obvious a lot of care went into establishing a new setting, the history of it, various cultures, their customs, relations between them, the way Gods were presented etc.

Not just talking about RPG genre but in general, games usually just don't go into such detail in regards to the setting they occur in. It's where PoE has the biggest potential for me, I like when games try to make it feel like their world has a rich history and you're just a small, insignificant part of it.

Agreed, I have much respect for whoever adapted deities from real-life pantheons to the game. They are fitting the fictional societies well, and they've paid attention to detail. I'm also in the minority of people who appreciate the work on languages, even though it's not really deep as in constructing complete fictional languages with grammars and a hundred-odd words. I agree with roshan's criticism as well though - I could see really pedantic amounts of attention to detail put into Athkatla, which are given to no area in PoE that I've seen.

 

[roshan]

I personally don't see any effort, dedication and love in POE at all...

One of it is the setting/lore, regardless of the execution (infodumps and whatever) or whether you like it or not it's obvious a lot of care went into establishing a new setting, the history of it, various cultures, their customs, relations between them, the way Gods were presented etc.

Not just talking about RPG genre but in general, games usually just don't go into such detail in regards to the setting they occur in. It's where PoE has the biggest potential for me, I like when games try to make it feel like their world has a rich history and you're just a small, insignificant part of it.

I'm not really sure what is unique about the setting. I mean some of the concepts of the deities are interesting, but otherwise, most of it felt really flat, very much like a random mishmash of elements forced together. Take Godlikes, I can't understand at all how you have these creatures who are literally on fire, or beaming rays of moonlight, or contorted into an alien mask roaming around - it's not just that no one bats an eyelid, they're just totally out of place in the setting. Then you have saints and martyrs evoking a later monotheist Europe, but then everyone worships pagan gods. Then of course you have stuff like reincarnation taken from Indic philosophy, but none of that is explored logically or philosophically.

Instead what does the game deliver? Soulnado, soulpedo, soul rocks, soulcalypse, soul degeneration, soulsomeness, unsoulness, soulmancy, soul statistics, every retarded thing they could have possibly thought up about souls has somehow made it into the game.

Remove all the retarded soul stuff, and what you have left is just a really bland version of the Sword Coast, stripped of the mythic and the epic. Like someone soaked the Forgotten Realms in bleach for a few days and then stuck a bunch of random stickers on top of it. The whole thing just seems really insipid to me.

Want real setting detail, carefully crafted and thought out? Browse the Banner Saga world map. There's more interesting lore and worldbuilding on that map alone than in a hundred POEs.

 

[AwesomeButton]

I'm not really sure what is unique about the setting. I mean some of the concepts of the deities are interesting, but otherwise, most of it felt really flat, very much like a random mishmash of elements forced together. Take Godlikes, I can't understand at all how you have these creatures who are literally on fire, or beaming rays of moonlight, or contorted into an alien mask roaming around - it's not just that no one bats an eyelid, they're just totally out of place in the setting. Then you have saints and martyrs evoking a later monotheist Europe, but then everyone worships pagan gods. Then of course you have stuff like reincarnation taken from Indic philosophy, but none of that is explored logically or philosophically.

Agreed on the "not explored enough" part. Btw, the collector's book (I think it was the one) says that the fire of fire godlike doesn't burn or emit heat.

Instead what does the game deliver? Soulnado, soulpedo, soul rocks, soulcalypse, soul degeneration, soulsomeness, unsoulness, soulmancy, soul statistics, every retarded thing they could have possibly thought up about souls has somehow made it into the game.

I agree, it started to get repetitive for me too. Everyone was blabbering about souls all the time.

Remove all the retarded soul stuff, and what you have left is just a really bland version of the Sword Coast, stripped of the mythic and the epic. Like someone soaked the Forgotten Realms in bleach for a few days and then stuck a bunch of random stickers on top of it. The whole thing just seems really insipid to me.

That's Josh Sawyer for you. He prefers it "dry". I have no problem with low-key fantasy with very little "codified" knowledge about the supernatural. I even prefer it to the juicier high fantasy settings like FR. But that's me.

 

[roshan]

That's Josh Sawyer for you. He prefers it "dry". I have no problem with low-key fantasy with very little "codified" knowledge about the supernatural. I even prefer it to the juicier high fantasy settings like FR. But that's me.

I think there's a pretty big difference between "dry" and "low key" or "low magic". There are different ways you could make low key and low magic work in a game. You could do so for example by making magic something more akin to witchcraft or the occult. Or you could go for a more Conanesque, sword and sorcery setting. You could also go for a middle of the road approach, high fantasy, but strip off the more derpy elements such as druids and rangers walking around with animals, etc. Hell even a Tolkienesque setting with a more limited bestiary and magic being more of a rarity would work.

But POE doesn't really do any of these things, it in fact indulges in all sorts of fantasy derpyness to an excess, even propagating MMO stereotypes such as the DPS rogue and the ranger as a pet trainer. Then you have the godlikes, as well as absurd fantasy races such as the Awaowaoh. But the dryness comes from the fact that none of these are utilized successfully to tell stories about the world and setting. The setting has no epic tales of alliances against the orcs, no romanticist notions of magic and the supernatural fading from the world, none of the weirdness of Planescape, nothing. Instead we get stories of Valians and Glanfathans, who apparently can be of any race, because otherwise it simply wouldn't be PC. It really feels like a ridiculous mishmash, where the designers couldn't decide whether they wanted to tackle cultures or races, and so both ended up being essentially irrelevant, and were too hindered by lack of creativity, political correctness and feminism to come up with anything actually interesting.

If your game is set in a high magic, FResque setting, and you are unable to play to the strengths of such because you weren't interested in such a setting in the first place, then you are obviously going to produce something stale, dry and boring. If you want your setting to be more medieval, but at the same time want to be radically PC and not offend anybody, then again you will fall flat. POE is unique in that it makes both these mistakes, it neither plays to the strengths of a pseudo-historical nor a high fantasy setting, it just melds the derpy and uninteresting aspects of both.

 

[AwesomeButton]

I agree, PoE feels like it tries to do more than one thing at a time -- "We had to do an IE-style, IE-feels game" and "I kinda like "dry" speech and historical settings"

 

[tdphys]

That's Josh Sawyer for you. He prefers it "dry". I have no problem with low-key fantasy with very little "codified" knowledge about the supernatural. I even prefer it to the juicier high fantasy settings like FR. But that's me.

I think there's a pretty big difference between "dry" and "low key" or "low magic". There are different ways you could make low key and low magic work in a game. You could do so for example by making magic something more akin to witchcraft or the occult. Or you could go for a more Conanesque, sword and sorcery setting. You could also go for a middle of the road approach, high fantasy, but strip off the more derpy elements such as druids and rangers walking around with animals, etc. Hell even a Tolkienesque setting with a more limited bestiary and magic being more of a rarity would work.

But POE doesn't really do any of these things, it in fact indulges in all sorts of fantasy derpyness to an excess, even propagating MMO stereotypes such as the DPS rogue and the ranger as a pet trainer. Then you have the godlikes, as well as absurd fantasy races such as the Awaowaoh. But the dryness comes from the fact that none of these are utilized successfully to tell stories about the world and setting. The setting has no epic tales of alliances against the orcs, no romanticist notions of magic and the supernatural fading from the world, none of the weirdness of Planescape, nothing. Instead we get stories of Valians and Glanfathans, who apparently can be of any race, because otherwise it simply wouldn't be PC. It really feels like a ridiculous mishmash, where the designers couldn't decide whether they wanted to tackle cultures or races, and so both ended up being essentially irrelevant, and were too hindered by lack of creativity, political correctness and feminism to come up with anything actually interesting.

If your game is set in a high magic, FResque setting, and you are unable to play to the strengths of such because you weren't interested in such a setting in the first place, then you are obviously going to produce something stale, dry and boring. If you want your setting to be more medieval, but at the same time want to be radically PC and not offend anybody, then again you will fall flat. POE is unique in that it makes both these mistakes, it neither plays to the strengths of a pseudo-historical nor a high fantasy setting, it just melds the derpy and uninteresting aspects of both.

I feel like the design work went into world/lore building/engine beautification with quest/encounter design/story delivery taking a major hit. The thing about something like FR, is that it's such a generic grab bag of the last 35 years of pulp fantasy, that the story and game play has to be good for the game to be memorable. Granted, Eora has a fair amount of FR conversion in it, but the background/lore did contribute to having a bad guy with a motivation that was deeper than "I want power or to be a god and/or kill everything", a unified fantasy history that seemed more like Erickson then a mishmash of 30 years of cheap fantasy literature and some interesting arcane mechanics (souls) that aren't just magic ex nihilo. There's a lot of good ingredients there, just need to make something out of it that's not half-baked. I'm waiting to see if the expansion brings relief before I start to pin my hopes on POE2 though.

 

[AwesomeButton]

I feel like the design work went into world/lore building/engine beautification with quest/encounter design/story delivery taking a major hit.

Heh, and I just came back to show you this bit of proof, taken from my triple crown attempt:

When it comes to literature in the world, I think a case can be made for some straight exposition (e.g. a history book), but when it comes to dialogue, I don't think writers do themselves any favors by using characters as encyclopedias. Critics usually slam writers who use character dialogue for straight exposition in any other medium; why should game dialogue be any different?

Well thank you Josh, for this bit of insight.

Spoiler

Spoiler

What a pretentious joker. This "use of dialogue for straight exposition" hits you in the face about an hour into the game. I guess it somehow avoided the creative lead's eagle gaze.

EDIT:
A minute later I accidentally hit Aloth with a Fan of Flames that I used against the buggers that were fighting us. As a result Aloth turned red and attacked me after the buggers were dead. Glorious.

 

[Immortal]

I feel like the design work went into world/lore building/engine beautification with quest/encounter design/story delivery taking a major hit.

Heh, and I just came back to show you this bit of proof, taken from my triple crown attempt:

When it comes to literature in the world, I think a case can be made for some straight exposition (e.g. a history book), but when it comes to dialogue, I don't think writers do themselves any favors by using characters as encyclopedias. Critics usually slam writers who use character dialogue for straight exposition in any other medium; why should game dialogue be any different?

Well thank you Josh, for this bit of insight.

Spoiler

Spoiler

What a pretentious joker. This "use of dialogue for straight exposition" hits you in the face about an hour into the game. I guess it somehow avoided the creative lead's eagle gaze.

EDIT:
A minute later I accidentally hit Aloth with a Fan of Flames that I used against the buggers that were fighting us. As a result Aloth turned red and attacked me after the buggers were dead. Glorious.

That wasn't even the largest offender of narrative dumps.. Lady Webb and some of the animancers literally dump essays of history on your face.. not even mentioning the backer NPC's who are all walking encyclopedias (of crap)

 

[tdphys]

Heh, I'm pretty sure I've developed a psychological aversion to the golden backer hue, and I only read the character names.

 

[AwesomeButton]

That wasn't even the largest offender of narrative dumps.. Lady Webb and some of the animancers literally dump essays of history on your face.. not even mentioning the backer NPC's who are all walking encyclopedias (of crap)

Guaranteed it isn't, it was just that I reached Gilded Vale, and when I saw this dialogue the quote from Josh came to mind.

 

[Roguey]

And pretty much always you just get a different line of dialogue in a conversation or two down the line, it doesn't actually change anything most of the time.

As far as Josh is concerned, that's enough to justify it.

But should you really be worrying about that when basic things like the encounter design suck balls?

System design was Tim and Josh's responsibility. Encounter design was the level designers, who are terrible. But perhaps not irredeemably so, considering the gradual improvements of the also-terrible IWD team.

 

[felipepepe]

System design was Tim and Josh's responsibility. Encounter design was the level designers, who are terrible. But perhaps not irredeemably so, considering the gradual improvements of the also-terrible IWD team.

Lead design was Josh's responsibility. If PoE had terrible level designers running amok, shame on who hired, assigned and approved their work.

Just give them a copy of any decent D&D module, ask them to read it, then look at their dungeons and point out what's wrong.

 

[Roguey]

Lead design was Josh's responsibility. If PoE had terrible level designers running amok, shame on who hired, assigned and approved their work.

The lead level designer was Bobby Null, who Josh claims is good at playing games. I assume they hire the best candidates who apply, and if no one great who can also work well with others applies, well.

Just give them a copy of any decent D&D module, ask them to read it, then look at their dungeons and point out what's wrong.

Bob's responsibility.

 

[felipepepe]

Josh still had the final word on everything design-wise, and he is the P&P veteran and harsh critic of other RPGs who thought this mess was good enough.

Unless, of course, this was one of those patronizing "this dumbed down shit is good enough for the average player" moments... not the most inspiring mindset for a game developer to have.

 

[Roguey]

Well it's something he'll be answering after enough time has passed for him to start talking about Eternity again.

 

[rado907]

The one quote that really bugs me is the one where Sawyer says that everyone hated the quest bonanza at the beginning of BG2... AFAIK everyone hates the opening dungeon, not the bonanza. If anything, the opening main act is the best part of BG2 and the highlight of the entire saga.

I'd even generalize to say that the sense of total freedom one gets in Amn is the hallmark of great RPGs. I'm sure you know the feeling... Like when you get off the ship in Morrowind, and realize, a few minutes later, that the entire island is open for exploration. Or when you leave Arroyo in Fallout 2 and reach the conclusion that you can go wherever you want... Such an awesome feeling.

If I want linearity, I'll go play some FPS, thank you very much.

 

[DeepOcean]

I feel like the design work went into world/lore building/engine beautification with quest/encounter design/story delivery taking a major hit.

Heh, and I just came back to show you this bit of proof, taken from my triple crown attempt:

When it comes to literature in the world, I think a case can be made for some straight exposition (e.g. a history book), but when it comes to dialogue, I don't think writers do themselves any favors by using characters as encyclopedias. Critics usually slam writers who use character dialogue for straight exposition in any other medium; why should game dialogue be any different?

Well thank you Josh, for this bit of insight.

Spoiler

Spoiler

What a pretentious joker. This "use of dialogue for straight exposition" hits you in the face about an hour into the game. I guess it somehow avoided the creative lead's eagle gaze.

EDIT:
A minute later I accidentally hit Aloth with a Fan of Flames that I used against the buggers that were fighting us. As a result Aloth turned red and attacked me after the buggers were dead. Glorious.

This could had been so easy to resolve without dumping.

Spoiler

Just make the player arriving on the village during a hanging with the "I'm lord Raedrics helpful tourist guide." hanging someone then have him telling the villagers to tell him of anyone suspicious of having hollowborn children as the birth was close bonus points to have Éder watching his farm hand being hanged and the "I'm lord Raedrics helpful tourist guide."being smug and threatening Éder, the traitor Eothosian, that he would be the next if the kid was Hollowborn.

 

[Xorazm]

I personally don't see any effort, dedication and love in POE at all...

One of it is the setting/lore, regardless of the execution (infodumps and whatever) or whether you like it or not it's obvious a lot of care went into establishing a new setting, the history of it, various cultures, their customs, relations between them, the way Gods were presented etc.

Not just talking about RPG genre but in general, games usually just don't go into such detail in regards to the setting they occur in. It's where PoE has the biggest potential for me, I like when games try to make it feel like their world has a rich history and you're just a small, insignificant part of it.

I'm not really sure what is unique about the setting. I mean some of the concepts of the deities are interesting, but otherwise, most of it felt really flat, very much like a random mishmash of elements forced together. Take Godlikes, I can't understand at all how you have these creatures who are literally on fire, or beaming rays of moonlight, or contorted into an alien mask roaming around - it's not just that no one bats an eyelid, they're just totally out of place in the setting. Then you have saints and martyrs evoking a later monotheist Europe, but then everyone worships pagan gods. Then of course you have stuff like reincarnation taken from Indic philosophy, but none of that is explored logically or philosophically.

Instead what does the game deliver? Soulnado, soulpedo, soul rocks, soulcalypse, soul degeneration, soulsomeness, unsoulness, soulmancy, soul statistics, every retarded thing they could have possibly thought up about souls has somehow made it into the game.

Remove all the retarded soul stuff, and what you have left is just a really bland version of the Sword Coast, stripped of the mythic and the epic. Like someone soaked the Forgotten Realms in bleach for a few days and then stuck a bunch of random stickers on top of it. The whole thing just seems really insipid to me.

Want real setting detail, carefully crafted and thought out? Browse the Banner Saga world map. There's more interesting lore and worldbuilding on that map alone than in a hundred POEs.

I'm not sure if Banner Saga is your best point of comparison here. I'd say that both PoE and Banner Saga suffer from a similar problem, in that both are set in interesting, well-developed worlds with some intriguing twists in their lore, but at the same time both narratives suffer from serious pacing problems.

Without getting too far into spoiler territory, Banner Saga in particular sets up a number of important plot points that are never resolved, as well as introducing a significant villain whose role is neither fully addressed nor explained. A common complaint among people who finished the game was that the ending seemed to come out of nowhere, with a number of major plot threads still left dangling. Granted it's planned as the first in a series, but a narrative which results in such common surprise among players can be fairly blamed on serious pacing issues.

Banner Saga also suffered from a bit clunky, weak characterization. None of it is outright bad, but after finishing the game a couple months ago I struggle to describe in any detail important plot players, what their characters were like, what motivated and what troubled them. I can already tell that in a few months time Pallegina is going to fade into nothingness and Kana I'll vaguely recall as the loud bard guy, but Durance, Grieving Mother and to a lesser extent Eder are probably going to stick. They were interesting, and that's to PoE's credit.

My point isn't to harp on Banner Saga - I agree with you that it's a great game made with serious heart, and apart from some stern reservations over the final boss fight I'd heartily recommend it to just about anybody - but rather to point out that both games require the player to dig a little bit to get what's good about them. PoE buries its virtues so far beneath clunky exposition and questionable design that I can't really begrudge anyone for not wanting to unearth them, but I don't think it's quite fair to hold Banner Saga up as a model of doing right what PoE does wrong.

If a person is put off by Banner Saga's exposition I can't really blame them, since it's the job of the game to engage you. Pillars suffers from the same problem, probably to a much greater degree. At the same time, though, it seems myopic to me to pretend that games like Banner Saga and Xulima are great games in spite of their flaws, and then pretend that Pillars is without meaningful redeeming features of its own.

(very briefly, in case someone is thinking to ask what I think those meaningful redeeming features are - some memorable, well-developed characters, some well developed areas with the castle assault in particular standing out, enough combat options to keep me at least entertained through a single playthrough, some intriguing concepts unfolding in the core narrative ... of course a lot of these are offset by plenty of criticisms that I think are very much on point, but at the end of the day all I can tell you is that I'm fond of messy ambition ...just wish it didn't have to be so suffocatingly grim)

 

[DeepOcean]

I see a ton of things we could improve about the game/systems, but it's a lot of fun as-is. I'm about 65 hours in on a Hard play through. I'm not doing a complete run but I've done a good amount of the side content. The crit path stuff eventually becomes relatively easy when you're over-leveled and over-geared, but that's pretty much what we expected.

 

[agris]

I think the way they prototype the game ("vertical slices") lends itself to designing not just combat but also rest and other systems simultanously.

I can't tell if you're overestimating how developed the gameplay mechanics are when the vertical slice is made. The slice is more a technical demo of all the various gameplay programming components: classes implemented, skill system programmed, abilities impacting skills, hit resolution, the stronghold, maps, npc pathing, rendering of world states (day/night/water/whatever). Nothing will be really dialed in at that point.

 

[Roguey]

The one quote that really bugs me is the one where Sawyer says that everyone hated the quest bonanza at the beginning of BG2... AFAIK everyone hates the opening dungeon, not the bonanza. If anything, the opening main act is the best part of BG2 and the highlight of the entire saga.

Not everyone, just that it's a common complaint. And it is, on Something Awful and the badgame forum. A lot of people there have expressed the sentiment that chapter two has too many quests. Bioware agreed in their postmortem, resulting in their sticking with a linear beginning->collect plot coupons from multiple areas->ending formula for a while.