Review RPG Codex Review: Darth Roxor on Disappointment, thy name is Pillars of Eternity

[tuluse]

Another case of a game being crowdfunded by one kind of audience and then designed for another kind of audience.

I don't think this is true actually. I think this game is very much designed for people who liked IE games, it just isn't well done.

 

[Athelas]

MRY, you raise BG's budget, I raise you this: "Not one person of the 60 who shipped Baldur's Gate had ever made a video game before"

60 people is more than twice as big as PoE's team. Also, you left out this crucial part:

The team at Bioware were inexperienced in the conventional game business, too. Not one person of the 60 who shipped Baldur's Gate had ever made a video game before -- "but they all came to it with passion and a love of the art."

 

[Darth Roxor]

The question obviously was not meant as an epistemological one to which "well, something must exist that thinks" would be a meaningful answer. It was about justifying one's values without an objective point of reference, as perhaps offered by gods. There was really no reason to have Descartes's answer there, because it does not answer the question the game wanted to ask. (By itself it's a pretty pedantic and useless answer to the epistemological question as well, but that is beside the point.)

I disagree. The question by and large refers to "if you've been lied to your whole life, what can you ever be sure of?", where the direct subject of the lies is ~spoilarz~, but it obviously extends to any subject you could apply. It is not, after all, 'what if we can't be assured of ~spoilarz~', but what if we can be assured of *nothing*. You can put here your own existence, your knowledge, your beliefs, your gods, your history, your anything. And Descartes's "I can at least be assured of the fact that I think" hits the nail on the head here, just like it did that originally - the idea behind cogito ergo sum being a sort of a reassurance a man can have the moment he starts questioning everything and is about to go crazy, he can at least be sure of his own ability to cogitate, even if everything around him is nothing but an illusion, some bizarro matrix. It's not about "something must exist that thinks" in the context of the question posed by the game, but "I must exist because I think". "I am not an automaton". "I have not been created by soulmachinery". "Even if I've been lied to all my life, at least I can consider these lies".

Plus, if it's justifying one's values without an objective point of reference - if everything is likely to be fake, how is the very fact of thinking right now not the only objective truth available at this very moment that could be used as this point of reference?




(finally some actual criticism I can respond to, thanks)

 

[Zeriel]

Another case of a game being crowdfunded by one kind of audience and then designed for another kind of audience.

I don't think this is true actually. I think this game is very much designed for people who liked IE games, it just isn't well done.

I have a hard time getting a read on what Sawyer is actually about. Guy says his personal tastes don't necessarily inform design, that he is making PoE for sensibilities that aren't his own, then ignores said sensibilities when it comes to some fairly core design principles. I guess the best explanation is he really did think he could "fix" the genre, the road to hell is paved with the best of intentions and etc.

 

[hiver]

Another case of a game being crowdfunded by one kind of audience and then designed for another kind of audience.

I don't think this is true actually. I think this game is very much designed for people who liked IE games, it just isn't well done.

It is true actually, despite seemingly being designed for people who liked IE games - it was actually designed for casuals and modern mass market drones, which is why it is designed in very mediocre and incoherent ways.

 

[Athelas]

Another case of a game being crowdfunded by one kind of audience and then designed for another kind of audience.

I don't think this is true actually. I think this game is very much designed for people who liked IE games, it just isn't well done.

I have a hard time getting a read on what Sawyer is actually about. Guy says his personal tastes don't necessarily inform design, that he is making PoE for sensibilities that aren't his own, then ignores said sensibilities when it comes to some fairly core design principles. I guess the best explanation is he really did think he could "fix" the genre, the road to hell is paved with the best of intentions and etc.

Apparently there are a lot of people who liked the IE games but disliked the combat.

 

[Gangrelrumbler]

felipepepe
They could have hundreds of guys with eons of experience. You can't just spend 3 years and beat a system that was being constantly upgraded, tweaked and polished for decades. Notice how the first system that managed to outperform DnD was Pathfinder, which was nothing else than a slight upgrade of the 3.5 ruleset. A guy who made Knights of the Chalice managed to outperform both Obsidian and Bioware when it came to combat design despite being a single person who also never designed a video game before. I'd like to remind you that the same Bioware who made RPG Codex's 4th best RPG started making banal shit boring DA games the moment they've lost access to the Dungeons and Dragons license.

 

[MRY]

MRY, you raise BG's budget, I raise you this: "Not one person of the 60 who shipped Baldur's Gate had ever made a video game before"

It's an odd thing for them to say a paragraph after noting that two years earlier, they had shipped Shattered Steel, on which many of them had worked. Am I missing something? Also, they had Interplay/BIS's support.

That said, I think the creation of Baldur's Gate is an extraorindary feat. I also think the creation of POE is an extraordinary feat. In both instances, they had assets and challenges: Baldur's Gate operated had a bigger budget, presumably much lower salaries (given that no one had lengthy pedigrees), a beloved license, and the assistance of the veterans at Interplay/BIS; but they didn't have deep experience and they were (Darksun: Shattered Lands and Fallout notwithstanding) largely inventing the style of game they were making. Obsidian has industry veterans and the benefits of a well-established game style, but less money, higher costs, higher expectations, no comparable publisher/sister-dev support (though having inXile around certainly helps!), and no existing IP to use as the foundation for everything.

. It's real benefit is not costing Obsidian any license rights - great for them, means nothing to players.

It means more flexibility, which should matter to players. It means that if the franchise takes off, there's no nightmare scenario like what doomed The Black Hound.

Anyway, I feel like I'm too ignorant of these topics to opine further (HT Wittgenstein). There's no sense in my trying to defend a game I've barely played from comparisons to another game I've barely played, all in the context of developers and a review I like.

 

[Zorba the Hutt]

Obsidian has industry veterans and the benefits of a well-established game style, but less money, higher costs, higher expectations, no comparable publisher/sister-dev support (though having inXile around certainly helps!), and no existing IP to use as the foundation for everything.

Don't forget Unity, which Feargus said completely changed the economics of doing a project like this compared to those older games.

 

[tuluse]

I have a hard time getting a read on what Sawyer is actually about. Guy says his personal tastes don't necessarily inform design, that he is making PoE for sensibilities that aren't his own, then ignores said sensibilities when it comes to some fairly core design principles. I guess the best explanation is he really did think he could "fix" the genre, the road to hell is paved with the best of intentions and etc.

I think a lot of the ideas he had were good ones. Getting rid of rounds and having actions take differing amounts of time was a great improvement. It just didn't quite come together.

It is true actually, despite seemingly being designed for people who liked IE games - it was actually designed for casuals and modern mass market drones, which is why it is designed in very mediocre and incoherent ways.

Baldur's Gate series were mass market games.

 

[hiver]

It is true actually, despite seemingly being designed for people who liked IE games - it was actually designed for casuals and modern mass market drones, which is why it is designed in very mediocre and incoherent ways.

Baldur's Gate series were mass market games.

lul wut?

 

[tuluse]

It is true actually, despite seemingly being designed for people who liked IE games - it was actually designed for casuals and modern mass market drones, which is why it is designed in very mediocre and incoherent ways.

Baldur's Gate series were mass market games.

lul wut?

BG1 sold over a million copies. BG2 sold over 2 million. That's mass market for PC only in late 90s early 00s. Hell, that's mass market today.

 

[felipepepe]

felipepepe They could have hundreds of guys with eons of experience. You can't just spend 3 years and beat a system that was being constantly upgraded, tweaked and polished for decades. Notice how the first system that managed to outperform DnD was Pathfinder, which was nothing else than a slight upgrade of the 3.5 ruleset. A guy who made Knights of the Chalice managed to outperform both Obsidian and Bioware when it came to combat design despite being a single person who also never designed a video game before.

Things like encounter design don't come from the ruleset. Any decent DM would try to make the encounters of a 60+ hours game something a bit more interesting than "a pack of random creatures in a room bumrush you".

I'd like to remind you that the same Bioware who made RPG Codex's 4th best RPG started making banal shit boring DA games the moment they've lost access to the Dungeons and Dragons system.

NWN used D&D. Kotor used d20, and they could always use Open d20 again. The loss of D&D has nothing to do with their decline.

 

[hiver]

The question obviously was not meant as an epistemological one to which "well, something must exist that thinks" would be a meaningful answer. It was about justifying one's values without an objective point of reference, as perhaps offered by gods. There was really no reason to have Descartes's answer there, because it does not answer the question the game wanted to ask. (By itself it's a pretty pedantic and useless answer to the epistemological question as well, but that is beside the point.)

I disagree. The question by and large refers to "if you've been lied to your whole life, what can you ever be sure of?", where the direct subject of the lies is ~spoilarz~, but it obviously extends to any subject you could apply. It is not, after all, 'what if we can't be assured of ~spoilarz~', but what if we can be assured of *nothing*. You can put here your own existence, your knowledge, your beliefs, your gods, your history, your anything. And Descartes's "I can at least be assured of the fact that I think" hits the nail on the head here, just like it did that originally - the idea behind cogito ergo sum being a sort of a reassurance a man can have the moment he starts questioning everything and is about to go crazy, he can at least be sure of his own ability to cogitate, even if everything around him is nothing but an illusion, some bizarro matrix. It's not about "something must exist that thinks" in the context of the question posed by the game, but "I must exist because I think". "I am not an automaton". "I have not been created by soulmachinery". "Even if I've been lied to all my life, at least I can consider these lies".

Plus, if it's justifying one's values without an objective point of reference - if everything is likely to be fake, how is the very fact of thinking right now not the only objective truth available at this very moment that could be used as this point of reference?


(finally some actual criticism I can respond to, thanks)

I wanted to ask for elaboration on that but i was busy doing something else.
Me and Descartes would have some words.

I would offer a different angle to the conundrum. "If you have been lied to your whole life, what can you be sure of?" - can very well mean that the lie was a lie and should not be suddenly considered as absolute truth.

Especially since if you consider everything is a lie as some sort of absolute truth then you cannot claim that you can be sure of your own cognition somehow not being a lie.

 

[Modron]

Apparently there are a lot of people who liked the IE games but disliked the combat.

When they came out I thought the bastardized round based real time combat was inferior to previously offered styles of combat such as turn-based, phased based, and full real time combat. Nothing like a 6 second round when your characters take x number of fake swings while only 1/2 attacks actually matter and real time movement rendered a lot of aoe/cloud spells far less useful then they would be in turn based combat. Not to mention the whole spell failure from being hit would generally only have triggered from attacks of opportunity/readying for stuff if the adaptation was more faithful. Now I did enjoy the games despite these flaws but the only IE game I would put in the pantheon of great rpgs did not earn its' place by virtue of its' combat.

TL/DR, I like my party based games turn based or phase based and was greatly disappointed by the round based real time combat. Not that I don't like real time combat, I just prefer it more actiony and only when controlling a single character.

 

[hiver]

It is true actually, despite seemingly being designed for people who liked IE games - it was actually designed for casuals and modern mass market drones, which is why it is designed in very mediocre and incoherent ways.

Baldur's Gate series were mass market games.

lul wut?

BG1 sold over a million copies. BG2 sold over 2 million. That's mass market for PC only in late 90s early 00s. Hell, that's mass market today.

Dont be dumb Tuluse, those games sold well because they were good, not because they were aiming at any specific market. They literally created their market.

- PoE insteadof being designed for those people who crowdfunded it - as an evolution and improved version of IE games - was instead designed to satisfy two different types of players and thats why its failing to satisfy either.

 

[Lhynn]

Sure, but Roxor is not reviewing PoE: horse armor dlc or PoE 2, hes reviewing PoE.

I think he wrote a great review. I was quite serious when I said at the outset that I believe the Codex provides an important service by sparing nothing; this place is as generous in its criticism as it is in its support. I just think the review might have been a bit better if it began by framing the enormous challenges that Obsidian faced in making the game, and the considerable successes they had in getting all the pieces in place, rather than suggesting that a $4.2M budget ensured an easy path to victory. Obviously, in terms of, "Is the end product great? Should I buy this game?" all the good intentions, hard work, and foundation-laying in the world don't matter. But when things veer from judging the game's quality to to judging its significance or what went into its creation, I think you do have to consider the challenges and positive externalities associated with POE.

Had prepared a big answer but it all comes down to this: because im considering those things is that i am so harsh on them. I was expecting better because they are obsidian, because theyve pulled good games out of very shitty development cycles.

Yeah, thats it, just disappointment.

 

[Rostere]

Avellone is a talented writer, and while obviously he’s not a second Hegel, he does have the penchant for creating compelling setups and questions. Meanwhile, each time PoE tries to go into ‘Tormenty’ territory, it falls flat on its face. Plato for Dummies is one example, but another good one is a question that is asked in the last 15 minutes of the game, which is probably supposed to be this game’s ‘what can change the nature of a man?’. It’s, ‘what if we can be assured of nothing?’ + 7 responses. Now, the writer must have thought that this was a doubleplusdeep philosophical dilemma, but was obviously unaware that this shit has already been answered 400 years ago by Rene Goddamn Descartes, making the question null and void. And you aren’t even given Descartes’ answer, either.

 

[TheGreatOne]

Also, you left out this crucial part:

The team at Bioware were inexperienced in the conventional game business, too. Not one person of the 60 who shipped Baldur's Gate had ever made a video game before -- "but they all came to it with passion and a love of the art."

Clearly you can't expect the same from Sawyer&Obsidian, who've shipped 5+ games and worked on the sequel of one of the most popular Western RPGs of all time (as well as the Star Wars and South Park licenses). And it obviously puts Obsidian at disadvantage, how could they compete with their million dollar budgets against passion and love of the art?!

 

[Athelas]

Also, you left out this crucial part:

The team at Bioware were inexperienced in the conventional game business, too. Not one person of the 60 who shipped Baldur's Gate had ever made a video game before -- "but they all came to it with passion and a love of the art."

Clearly you can't expect the same from Sawyer&Obsidian, who've shipped 5+ games and worked on the sequel of one of the most popular Western RPGs of all time (as well as the Star Wars and South Park licenses)

I wasn't being sarcastic. Apparently the folks at Obsidian prefer monocled turn-based combat in a non-fantasy setting over RTwP shit with elves. Joke's on us.

 

[Gangrelrumbler]

felipepepe They could have hundreds of guys with eons of experience. You can't just spend 3 years and beat a system that was being constantly upgraded, tweaked and polished for decades. Notice how the first system that managed to outperform DnD was Pathfinder, which was nothing else than a slight upgrade of the 3.5 ruleset. A guy who made Knights of the Chalice managed to outperform both Obsidian and Bioware when it came to combat design despite being a single person who also never designed a video game before.

Things like encounter design don't come from the ruleset. Any decent DM would try to make the encounters of a 60+ hours game something a bit more interesting than "a pack of random creatures in a room bumrush you".

I'd like to remind you that the same Bioware who made RPG Codex's 4th best RPG started making banal shit boring DA games the moment they've lost access to the Dungeons and Dragons system.

NWN used D&D. Kotor used d20, and they could always use Open d20 again. The loss of D&D has nothing to do with their decline.

But Pillars of Eternity don't just have creatures bumrushing you, they use skills, buffs and shit. You just don't notice because their abilities are shit. Xiaurips cast spells like crazy, spiders try to web you, wolves knock you down, ogres have shamans to back them-up, shades summon help, wisps confuse you. It just doesn't have any meaning. On the other hand Baldur's Gate 2 could have a fun encounter that relied just on mobs bum rushing you. Provided these mobs were intellect sucking ilithids that could kill you in two hits if you dumped int, golems that laugh at your mages or umber hulks which fucked-up your ranks by casting confusion.

As for Neverwinter Nights - it was a solid game. The campaigns were bad because the game was multiplayer and custom content focused, which is where it shined. Multiplier focus was also a reason why you could only control a single character - which made single-player lacking by taking away tactical combat. On the other hand Dragon Age was just like Baldur's Gate - only more automated, and it sucked.

 

[Darth Roxor]

Especially since if you consider everything is a lie as some sort of absolute truth then you cannot claim that you can be sure of your own cognition somehow not being a lie.

But that was precisely Descartes's point, that you can be sure! Hell, you must be sure, as it's only logical. If everything you perceive or learn is a lie, the very fact that you think about it in terms of 'is this is a lie?' is something that is rock-solid. You doubt the truth of something, but can you doubt the doubt? And further doubt the doubt of the doubt? Trying to engage into this is on one hand a gigantic fallacy leading to a vicious cycle, but on the other, it only kind of reinforces your certainty that you do, in fact, think, if you can technically doubt every incoming doubt.

Fuck, in PoE's context, this shit is actually even more reinforced than with Descartes himself. Because Descartes had to find a backdoor to another thing - what if even my thoughts are false because they are implanted in me by a spiteful god? Answer: This cannot be because God is good by nature and wouldn't do such a thing. Now remove gods from the equation because ~spoilarz~ (even more bonus points because the gods of poe are not omnipotent to begin with), and you don't even need the backdoor.

 

[hiver]

God no, what a nonsense. If you take a lie as an absolute then your thinking may as well be another lie. And if you go down that vicious circle then you cannot say that your thinking is somehow not a lie, since that defeats the idea that everything is a lie.

see?

The point and the actual answer is not to go into such extremes in the first place. Descartes seemed like a good guy. Wish i could talk to him to ease his troubles.

- now, some things we are taught or think may turn out to be lies or not exactly true, but that does not mean absolutely everything is a lie.

Extremes are not truths. they are just extremes.

 

[Trash]

Neverwinter Nights - it was a solid game.

So, it has come to this.

 

[Gangrelrumbler]

Neverwinter Nights - it was a solid game.

So, it has come to this.

Main campaign was trash, but multiplayer experience and custom campaigns were solid.