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I can understand the complaints about some of the writing, and the expectations on Obsidian to be better than this, but IMO it's very hard to come up with a lot of games with better writing than PoE.
Well, that's just your opinion, and even if it turns out to be a fact, that doesn't mean that things shouldn't be criticized in order to be improved in future installment. Fellating fanboys are the number 1 cause of game companies going full retard.
Like I said, I think criticism can be justified, in part because I have criticism myself.
IMO where I disagree with people is when they compare the writing to that of other games, and when they grade it (say, 7/10) thus implicitly comparing the writing to other games. I'm not only writing about what I've read on the Codex.
I think it's self-evident that PoE has better writing than nine out of ten PC games. I would say PoE has better writing than AT LEAST 8 out of ten PC RPGs. There are a lot of books with better writing than PoE however (duh!). In short a lot of people are either holding it to unfair standards or just being retards when they say it's bad.
It's also always a bit hard to discern who is a fucktard and who is not when discussing writing. When people complain about combat and say that they got one-shotted by bears for four hours or have missed integral parts of the combat system, you can pretty much dismiss them immediately. When discussing writing you need to ask what other games have good writing, and after that, the specific complaints about writing.
No. Thesis statement is argument - evidence - conclusion, not the other way around. You start with criticism, provide arguments and necessary external data to support your point as necessary, then arrive at conclusion of whether it's unsalvageable shit, average shit or good shit.
I don't see how this is in disagreement with anything I wrote?
If a person says that "the writing is bad" and then goes on saying that "it's worse than DA:I", "it's worse than Skyrim", "it's worse than D:OS", "it's worse than CoD: Black Ops" then that person is in reality making an assessment based on different disposition. It's likely that we agree as much on which games are good as you agree with a dung beetle on preferred food.
Similarly, if a person presents the opinion that Fallout is bad because it has "much slower pace than Diablo" I think most of the Codex' inhabitants would disregard that opinion.
Every opinion is built on some kind of comparison (the "evidence" in your thesis statement model), and if that comparison is invalid, then the conclusion is also invalid, and in most cases also the argument.
Only then will most of the haters implicate themselves as imbeciles and you can continue trusting your own judgement and indulging a smug sense of superiority.
I don't know, really. This is pretty much the best writing there is if you compare to other RPGs. Not THE best but definitely top tier on a scale to 10 if we distribute PC RPGs evenly.
I can understand the complaints about some of the writing, and the expectations on Obsidian to be better than this, but IMO it's very hard to come up with a lot of games with better writing than PoE.
It's also always a bit hard to discern who is a fucktard and who is not when discussing writing. When people complain about combat and say that they got one-shotted by bears for four hours or have missed integral parts of the combat system, you can pretty much dismiss them immediately. When discussing writing you need to ask what other games have good writing, and after that, the specific complaints about writing. Only then will most of the haters implicate themselves as imbeciles and you can continue trusting your own judgement and indulging a smug sense of superiority.
Fuck other PC RPGs. Compaire PoE with the other Obsidian games. How does it compaire with KotOR2, MotB, AP, F:NV? Or with PS:T, BG2?
And keep in mind that from these FNV, AP, and BG2 had mediocre writing. I would excpect the masterpiece of Obsidian, the game that they wanted to make, were free from publisers and was their baby to be above these three.
Well, what can I say, I agree with you here. As I wrote: "I can understand the complaints about some of the writing, and the expectations on Obsidian to be better than this".
But it's not the statement that "PoE is better than 99% of the games out there but worse than MotB, KotOR2 and PS:T" that I disagree with.
What's irritating to me is that the voices of those who say "PoE's writing is bad..." because it's worse than PS:T and those who state the same because it's worse than Skyrim (or whatever) are blending together.
I hope Avellone is the lead designer to their next IP, or to PoE expansion. And they shouldn't had let Ziets go.
Apparently Eric Festenmaker isn't at the same league (and Sawyer is crap in that department but that was known from the start)
Keep in mind that i haven't started PoE yet, so my opinion is only based on people's feedback, and it's entirely possible to eat my words when i play the game. But from what i read (and from some people i trust their opinion) this game's writing is below Obsidian's best (read Avellone), or the next best thing(read Ziets)
-And when you think they are preparing for an expansion or even a sequel,makes me weep, because i forgot everything about this game, 50 hours in it and i don't remeber a single thing about the lore.The only thing i remeber is Gudhummer,Lygucy and ..oh yhea ,DA BUMB.
-The only companion that stood out was...was...hmm...none,they were such mundane bunch of losers and their personal quests sucked major dick.A big example is the blue orc Kana,worst fucking quest i have ever seen.
-Replay value ,none.It doesn't matter what you chose along the game ,everything that you accomplished appears on a 2 minute slide show ending.
-They said that you can skip a major part of this game and no wonder they said that,the side quests are garbage,a majority of them are simple with a few gimmicks in the dialogue tree.There are no major side quests in this game beside Roedric Stronghold and even that one wasn't great,the only good thing about it, is that you could take multiple approaches on how to storm the stronghold ,but the quest itself? Kill Roe or Kos ,or both and no one gives a shit if you kill them.
-The storyline is so god damn bad,after i finished act II ,i was about to trow the damn pc out the window.They took such a fucking cheap approach, that i just couldn't go on anymore.
And people keep giving this...garbage 9-10 ? Even after 20 years they can't compete with the older rpgs ,fucking 20 years .
I spent so much money on these damn Kickstarters and none of them delivered.From now on ,i'm going to pirate everything,so i can see with my own eyes if they deserve my hard working mulas.
But it's not the statement that "PoE is better than 99% of the games out there but worse than MotB, KotOR2 and PS:T" that I disagree with.
What's irritating to me is that the voices of those who say "PoE's writing is bad..." because it's worse than PS:T and those who state the same because it's worse than Skyrim (or whatever) are blending together.
Man, not agreeing with the edgy try hards that mention dog shit like skyrim but... you know, not better than MotB, Kotor 2 and PS:T? Who is left? Taking the top of the line storyfag RPGs out, all the others are generic emo fantasy like BG 1 and 2 and generic plain fantasy like Icewind Dale 1 and 2. If someone says to me PoE is better than NWN 2, for example, I agree, Aids is better than Ebola but that doesn't make Aids wonderful. I need something better for comparison.
-And when you think they are preparing for an expansion or even a sequel,makes me weep, because i forgot everything about this game, 50 hours in it and i don't remeber a single thing about the lore.The only thing i remeber is Gudhummer,Lygucy and ..oh yhea ,DA BUMB.
-The only companion that stood out was...was...hmm...none,they were such mundane bunch of losers and their personal quests sucked major dick.A big example is the blue orc Kana,worst fucking quest i have ever seen.
-Replay value ,none.It doesn't matter what you chose along the game ,everything that you accomplished appears on a 2 minute slide show ending.
-They said that you can skip a major part of this game and no wonder they said that,the side quests are garbage,a majority of them are simple with a few gimmicks in the dialogue tree.There are no major side quests in this game beside Roedric Stronghold and even that one wasn't great,the only good thing about it, is that you could take multiple approaches on how to storm the stronghold ,but the quest itself? Kill Roe or Kos ,or both and no one gives a shit if you kill them.
-The storyline is so god damn bad,after i finished act II ,i was about to trow the damn pc out the window.They took such a fucking cheap approach, that i just couldn't go on anymore.
And people keep giving this...garbage 9-10 ? Even after 20 years they can't compete with the older rpgs ,fucking 20 years .
I spent so much money on these damn Kickstarters and none of them delivered.From now on ,i'm going to pirate everything,so i can see with my own eyes if they deserve my hard working mulas.
Like I said, I think criticism can be justified, in part because I have criticism myself.
IMO where I disagree with people is when they compare the writing to that of other games, and when they grade it (say, 7/10) thus implicitly comparing the writing to other games. I'm not only writing about what I've read on the Codex.
I think it's self-evident that PoE has better writing than nine out of ten PC games. I would say PoE has better writing than AT LEAST 8 out of ten PC RPGs. There are a lot of books with better writing than PoE however (duh!). In short a lot of people are either holding it to unfair standards or just being retards when they say it's bad.
When they say it's bad, yes, I agree, they're mostly being facetious (though there's no accounting for preference). It isn't bad by any accounts - at its worst the writing is around serviceable levels, although even serviceable can push the limits of its welcome. There is a marked example where this isn't the case though, and the writing takes such a plummet that it can easily bum the player out, and that's Act 2 ending. If you've seen it already, you'll know what I mean. If not, then you might yet have a bit of a change of mind. It won't make you think the game is shit, mind you, but it's one of those moments where you'll wonder how anyone thought it was a good idea, to put it mildly.
I don't see how this is in disagreement with anything I wrote?
If a person says that "the writing is bad" and then goes on saying that "it's worse than DA:I", "it's worse than Skyrim", "it's worse than D:OS", "it's worse than CoD: Black Ops" then that person is in reality making an assessment based on different disposition. It's likely that we agree as much on which games are good as you agree with a dung beetle on preferred food.
Similarly, if a person presents the opinion that Fallout is bad because it has "much slower pace than Diablo" I think most of the Codex' inhabitants would disregard that opinion.
Every opinion is built on some kind of comparison (the "evidence" in your thesis statement model), and if that comparison is invalid, then the conclusion is also invalid, and in most cases also the argument.
Ah, but this isn't evident from your earlier post, which is structured around apparent initial validation by cross-genre comparing; it can be read as though 1) criticism is only valid if the subject is not better than certain threshold and 2) criticism is innately coming from haters. It may not be what you intended to write, but we get a lot of strawmen like that thrown around so one eventually sets to a routine. Once you explain your points, they're pretty reasonable, but the earlier post is just too ambiguous and lacking in context. With clarifications - yep, agreed. Thing is, a person can also say, "The writing is bad - look at character X/event B/Ending of Chapter 2" instead of comparing it to another game, which's a pretty valid (and actually more accurate, in my opinion) approach.
Not an interesting reply to that statement, I'm afraid.
-And when you think they are preparing for an expansion or even a sequel,makes me weep, because i forgot everything about this game, 50 hours in it and i don't remeber a single thing about the lore.The only thing i remeber is Gudhummer,Lygucy and ..oh yhea ,DA BUMB.
-The only companion that stood out was...was...hmm...none,they were such mundane bunch of losers and their personal quests sucked major dick.A big example is the blue orc Kana,worst fucking quest i have ever seen.
-Replay value ,none.It doesn't matter what you chose along the game ,everything that you accomplished appears on a 2 minute slide show ending.
-They said that you can skip a major part of this game and no wonder they said that,the side quests are garbage,a majority of them are simple with a few gimmicks in the dialogue tree.There are no major side quests in this game beside Roedric Stronghold and even that one wasn't great,the only good thing about it, is that you could take multiple approaches on how to storm the stronghold ,but the quest itself? Kill Roe or Kos ,or both and no one gives a shit if you kill them.
-The storyline is so god damn bad,after i finished act II ,i was about to trow the damn pc out the window.They took such a fucking cheap approach, that i just couldn't go on anymore.
And people keep giving this...garbage 9-10 ? Even after 20 years they can't compete with the older rpgs ,fucking 20 years .
I spent so much money on these damn Kickstarters and none of them delivered.From now on ,i'm going to pirate everything,so i can see with my own eyes if they deserve my hard working mulas.
BioWare and Bethesda make the kind of games you are looking for then. Should probably leave here and go check out the BSN forums. Should be your kind of place.
As a rule of thumb, if you have to wonder whether you can afford or not a kickstarter and its implied utility return, then you can't afford it. Next time keep your wallet closed, stop playig games and go find a less mediocre job. Games are a luxury.
Well if so it was in the passing, and I understand why: The game itself only mentions them in the passing.
I mean, here we have a crisis of biblical proportions. Worse, kidses are born practically dead, not only the firstborn but almost all of them, for years. It is in every sense a calamity. And people say that...
In the same way they're talking about the weather, or the new neighbors. An event like that would dominate everything, but most people are quite composed about it. It's mostly "business is not going so well because of the hollowborn, you know". It's like as if someone dropped an a-bomb on New York and when you arrive, 90% of the people would rather talk about TV shows, celebrities and their job. It's a bizarre dissonance. Dare I call it a... Ludonarrative... Dissonance?
As a rule of thumb, if you have to wonder whether you can afford or not a kickstarter and its implied utility return, then you can't afford it. Next time keep your wallet closed, stop playig games and go find a less mediocre job. Games are a luxury.
As a rule of thumb, if you have to wonder whether you can afford or not a kickstarter and its implied utility return, then you can't afford it. Next time keep your wallet closed, stop playig games and go find a less mediocre job. Games are a luxury.
As a rule of thumb, if you have to wonder whether you can afford or not a kickstarter and its implied utility return, then you can't afford it. Next time keep your wallet closed, stop playig games and go find a less mediocre job. Games are a luxury.
I'm not poor you bastard,but i wanted to give them a chance for once, to prove their storytelling strength and after 3 years this is the best you could do?They keept complaing about the big evil publishers and after 3 fucking years ,you give me a carbon copy of Baldurs gate ?
Have you idiots played Underrail? That game has the budget of an ice cream and the soul of a 4 milion game..how come? A medium sized studio like Obsidian full of celebrietes, is on par with a garage made game,kinda pathetic if you ask me.
There are a lot of completely skipable dialogues and forgetable NPCs in the game, yes but damn, even comparing writing in POE to divinity or dragon age is an insult to Obsidian. In video games industry this "mediocre writing" completely destroys like 95% of anything that ever came out. Also since when does BG2 have good writing. The dialogues there are as primitive and simple as it is physically possible.
P.S. Just do not click on NPCs with bright yellow names. Yes that kickstrter "reward" sucks and is completely useless. But Obsidian had only the best intentions in mind.
As a rule of thumb, if you have to wonder whether you can afford or not a kickstarter and its implied utility return, then you can't afford it. Next time keep your wallet closed, stop playig games and go find a less mediocre job. Games are a luxury.
I'm not poor you bastard,but i wanted to give them a chance for once, to prove their storytelling strength and after 3 years this is the best you could do?They keept complaing about the big evil publishers and after 3 fucking years ,you give me a carbon copy of Baldurs gate ?
Have you idiots played Underrail? That game has the budget of an ice cream and the soul of a 4 milion game..how come? A medium size studio like Obsidian full of celebrietes, is on par with a garage made game,kinda pathetic if you ask me.
I hope Avellone is the lead designer to their next IP, or to PoE expansion. And they shouldn't had let Ziets go.
Apparently Eric Festenmaker isn't at the same league (and Sawyer is crap in that department but that was known from the start)
Keep in mind that i haven't started PoE yet, so my opinion is only based on people's feedback, and it's entirely possible to eat my words when i play the game. But from what i read (and from some people i trust their opinion) this game's writing is below Obsidian's best (read Avellone), or the next best thing(read Ziets)
It's below Obsidian's best (at least below what you might imagine is their theoretical best), but not in a way which leaves you sore, at least that's how I felt. People have said that it's worse than vanilla NWN2, I have to disagree with that. The lingering feeling is that they were restricted when they told they were leaning heavily on BG2 for inspiration. I guess you can't have the story part being too crazy and ambitious then .
AP is not really comparable because it's such a different story with writing in such a different mood.
IMO Sawyer has done very well in designing the setting, but you're correct in that I wouldn't let him do any actual writing beyond that point. It's definitely a modern attempt at a realistic setting designed using Tolkienesque methodology, which is pretty ambitious.
Personally I would have Tim Cain designing the game itself, Avellone doing all the writing (WITHOUT interference from ANYONE), and Sawyer fleshing out the details of the setting and looking at balancing Tim Cain's system (without removing anything or making choices less important).
But it's not the statement that "PoE is better than 99% of the games out there but worse than MotB, KotOR2 and PS:T" that I disagree with.
What's irritating to me is that the voices of those who say "PoE's writing is bad..." because it's worse than PS:T and those who state the same because it's worse than Skyrim (or whatever) are blending together.
Man, not agreeing with the edgy try hards that mention dog shit like skyrim but... you know, not better than MotB, Kotor 2 and PS:T? Who is left? Taking the top of the line storyfag RPGs out, all the others are generic emo fantasy like BG 1 and 2 and generic plain fantasy like Icewind Dale 1 and 2. If someone says to me PoE is better than NWN 2, for example, I agree, Aids is better than Ebola but that doesn't make Aids wonderful. I need something better for comparison.
So you're saying that there are essentially three good games (MotB, Kotor 2 and PS:T) and the rest are "aids" and "ebola"?
I like your style, where did you learn to be so edgy?
Ah, but this isn't evident from your earlier post, which is structured around apparent initial validation by cross-genre comparing; it can be read as though 1) criticism is only valid if the subject is not better than certain threshold
Thing is, a person can also say, "The writing is bad - look at character X/event B/Ending of Chapter 2" instead of comparing it to another game, which's a pretty valid (and actually more accurate, in my opinion) approach.
It's always good to focus on the negative criticism when you're trying to improve things, but not when you're trying to rate things, in which case you must make a weighted judgement. Personally I get very confused and irritated when both n00bs and extreme monocled grognards are showing the game with negative criticism, when their frames of reference is not immediately made clear. If you say that "PoE sucks ass" that can be both a legit opinion or the ramblings of an imbecile depending on the frame of reference. Maybe one person think that the game sucks because the writing is not as good as in their favourite novel by Borges or Eco, and the other person think it sucks because they couldn't get past the first wolves (no offense meant, Avellone).
Secondly, you can't say that something is "good" or "bad" without comparing to something else. Purely logically speaking, you must have at least one point of reference, preferably two (one above, one below) to "hedge in" your assessment.
In 99% cases the point of a review is to compare a game to other games. The only other possibilities is comparing parts of a game to itself, or comparing it to other things such as movies or books. If you only compare a game to itself ("The ending of Chapter 2 is worse than the ending of Chapter 1") then you have said nothing about the quality of the game compared to other games or phenomena. If you compare it to the most awesome things ever made you are likely being unfair if you do not make that very clear.
Well if so it was in the passing, and I understand why: The game itself only mentions them in the passing.
I mean, here we have a crisis of biblical proportions. Worse, kidses are born practically dead, not only the firstborn but almost all of them, for years. It is in every sense a calamity. And people say that...
In the same way they're talking about the weather, or the new neighbors. An event like that would dominate everything, but most people are quite composed about it. It's mostly "business is not going so well because of the hollowborn, you know". It's like as if someone dropped an a-bomb on New York and when you arrive, 90% of the people would rather talk about TV shows, celebrities and their job. It's a bizarre dissonance. Dare I call it a... Ludonarrative... Dissonance?
And while scrolling through her feed I found https://twitter.com/Carrie_Patel/status/581435174807674881 Wouldn't it be fantastic if the lesbian story you guise hate so much was from Lesi and she managed to troll you all at least one more time? Unless it's proven otherwise, this is now my headcanon.
Man, are you IGN now?
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