Tyranny Pre-Release Thread

[Ninjerk]

EBUL

 

[Excidium II]

Arrows catch fire by pure malice?

 

[CptMace]

Damn the game's mechanics aren't explained with reason, through scientific process ? That's terrible.
I predict a future where big names of the industry have a R&D department with a lab to try out their game mechanics in real life, make sure it makes sense m'kay.

 

[Prime Junta]

Not at all, that's how industries work.

Industries dominated by titanic publishers like Electronic Arts who sell to millions. We'd like to believe that the rise of Kickstarter and mid-sized developers has ushered in a new kind of gaming industry that caters to niches. Any attempt to forcibly break a franchise out of its niche is likely to alienate more people than it attracts and destroy the chances of any future Kickstarter. That seems to be working out so far - Divinity seems to be on the trajectory towards becoming more, not less complex, and the Shadowrun games didn't get dumbed down either.

I think that if Obsidian want to take Pillars of Eternity mainstream, what they'll do is complete a duology or trilogy of hardcore isometric games, then hope they've made enough money and gotten enough publicity to launch a mass market spin-off title that'll be some kind of multiplatform Skyrim/New Vegas-type thing.

Moreover, Pillars has already acquired more complexity in the 2.00 and 3.00 patches as well as WM1+2. New mechanics, more complex item characteristics, more and different enemy abilities, more complex encounters etc. They won't do a U-turn on that.

If Tyranny is dumbed-down AND it sells, like, twice as well as Pillars, then and only then is the Pillars franchise at risk.

 

[Abu Antar]

I don't think Pillars is at risk. From what we've heard, Tyranny is geared towards a wider audience, but there is also a publisher involved. Yes, Paradox are involved with Pillars, too, but that's just distribution. On that subject, do we know who the owner of the IP is?

For me, 4 person parties don't have to be worse than 6 person parties, but if it's just for streamlining, I think it's a bad choice. The same goes for less enemies per encounter. I hope they make enemies threatening in that case.

I am interested in how factions and companions will be handled. That poorly handled in Eternity, compared to New Vegas, in my opinion.

Learn by doing and gaining abilities based on reputation with companions/factions will also be interesting to see how it works. Usually, learn by doing isn't great.

I agree with Brian on one point, with only four character parties, classless is better. This way, you can better fill out roles you personally want, instead of being locked to specific classes.

 

[Trashos]

If Tyranny is dumbed-down AND it sells, like, twice as well as Pillars, then and only then is the Pillars franchise at risk.

Your first condition (dumbed-down) is already fulfilled. It is not like they are hiding it, they are actually advertising it. One condition to go.

 

[Trashos]

I don't think Pillars is at risk. From what we've heard, Tyranny is geared towards a wider audience, but there is also a publisher involved. Yes, Paradox are involved with Pillars, too, but that's just distribution. On that subject, do we know who the owner of the IP is?

Paradox owns Tyranny, Obsidian own Pillars.

There is no way a Tyranny success is going to have zero effect on Pillars LONG-TERM. Just imagine the dynamics inside the company. You are going to have a bunch of guys working on a hugely successful game that is pouring money in, and on the opposite corner you are going to have a bunch of guys working on its poor cousin. No way this situation can be sustained.

 

[Infinitron]

If Tyranny is dumbed-down AND it sells, like, twice as well as Pillars, then and only then is the Pillars franchise at risk.

I might agree with this if you define "at risk" as "they might just stop making Pillars games altogether and start making Tyranny games instead". I don't think they'll ever pervert the series, try to turn one kind of game into another kind of game, like what happened to Dragon Age or what happened to Deus Ex in the early 2000s. Those days are over IMO, we aren't going to see stuff like that happen with Kickstarter RPGs.

I also don't think Tyranny will sell twice as much as Pillars. I think it's pretty likely to sell less than Pillars (Why streamline it then? Because publishers. Or maybe they'll DLC whore it, we'll see)

 

[Abu Antar]

I don't think Pillars is at risk. From what we've heard, Tyranny is geared towards a wider audience, but there is also a publisher involved. Yes, Paradox are involved with Pillars, too, but that's just distribution. On that subject, do we know who the owner of the IP is?

Paradox owns Tyranny, Obsidian own Pillars.

There is no way a Tyranny success is going to have zero effect on Pillars LONG-TERM. Just imagine the dynamics inside the company. You are going to have a bunch of guys working on a hugely successful game that is pouring money in, and on the opposite corner you are going to have a bunch of guys working on its poor cousin. No way this situation can be sustained.

Long term? Yes. But I think we'll see different types of games for Eternity either way. They said from the start that they wanted to create many different types of rpgs for the PoE world, or my memory might be wrong. For PoE 2, I think that we'll still be having a six man party, but that doesn't mean that they won't dumb down other aspects of the game. We'll see, I guess.

I'm a pessimist at heart, so as long as whatever they do turns out decent, I'll be pleased.

 

[Kem0sabe]

Considering how time consuming and expensive it is to add DLC content to an isometric 2d rpg, worthwhile content that is, I'm not so sure paradox will flood us with tranny dlc.

Maybe a couple of expansions if the base game sells more than a million copies.

It's one thing to add sprites, text, and new mechanics and call it ck2 or euiv dlc, it's another to render new maps, new animations, new quests and voice overs.

 

[Alex]

Probaly just reduced reputation so you don't get their awesome button.

Actually, it has been stated that negative reputation also confers a bonus, just a different one, a la Alpha Protocol (which I'm playing at this very moment).

You really like bad games, don't you?

 

[Excidium II]

Damn the game's mechanics aren't explained with reason, through scientific process ? That's terrible.
I predict a future where big names of the industry have a R&D department with a lab to try out their game mechanics in real life, make sure it makes sense m'kay.

Spare us of your cretinism.

 

[CptMace]

No, no, you raised a very important matter there. Think a second of the preparation it requires to fire a flaming arrow, we shouldn't let that kind of shit get a pass so easily.
You're right to be upset at arrows catching fire out of thin air, that shit ain't normal in a proper rpg.

ps : can somebody link this to Obsidian so they can implement the items of the list in the game, as well as the crafting mechanic ? Make the ability consume a number of the listed item per arrows fired and get all that checked by a specialist.

 

[Excidium II]

It's perfectly normal for CRPGs to be so devoid of creativity they have to give MOBA powers to everyone to make combat interesting.

 

[CptMace]

We all agree on that dude, I don't get why you're so upset about the arrows in particular when the devs basically told ud that you could throw a friend in the air while he fires his bow, that's what is most retarded here, not the fact arrows are flaming, who cares about that ?

 

[Excidium II]

We all agree on that dude, I don't get why you're so upset about the arrows in particular when the devs basically told ud that you could throw a friend in the air while he fires his bow, that's what is most retarded here, not the fact arrows are flaming, who cares about that ?

We knew that one first, since it was one of the screenshots reveal. Set the tone for what to expect right away.

 

[Roguey]

Looks like I need to post http://forums.obsidian.net/blog/5/e...itude-and-the-responsibility-of-expectations/ again

Something that seems to frequently come up when discussing the design of a game system is whether or not some aspect of that system adheres to reality. Or, more precisely, whether the outcomes of that system accurately simulate the results that the person making the argument expects, based on their particular interpretation of reality.

Generally, these arguments come from players, or from non-designers, or less experienced designers, and will take the form of, "But XXXX isn't realistic!" or "Realistically, YYYY should happen instead". And, frequently, experienced game designers will turn around and say "Who cares?" and merrily go on their way designing an "unrealistic" system.

"No one here cares about plausibility in game systems" is the Obsidian system design philosophy and it's true for everything they've made from scratch whether it's Alpha Protocol, Dungeon Siege III, South Park, Pillars of Eternity, or this one.

 

[CptMace]

The problem isn't about unrealistic stuff. These are ok, even in rpgs. Problem is about straight out retarded awesome.button® stuff. We're not saying "But XXXX isn't realistic!", we're saying "But XXXX is unbelievably dumb and childish".

 

[Excidium II]

Looks like I need to post http://forums.obsidian.net/blog/5/e...itude-and-the-responsibility-of-expectations/ again

Something that seems to frequently come up when discussing the design of a game system is whether or not some aspect of that system adheres to reality. Or, more precisely, whether the outcomes of that system accurately simulate the results that the person making the argument expects, based on their particular interpretation of reality.

Generally, these arguments come from players, or from non-designers, or less experienced designers, and will take the form of, "But XXXX isn't realistic!" or "Realistically, YYYY should happen instead". And, frequently, experienced game designers will turn around and say "Who cares?" and merrily go on their way designing an "unrealistic" system.

"No one here cares about plausibility in game systems" is the Obsidian system design philosophy and it's true for everything they've made from scratch whether it's Alpha Protocol, Dungeon Siege III, South Park, Pillars of Eternity, or this one.

Experience doesn't make you a good game designer, specially when your whole experience is making shit.

Looked at who wrote the article and threw it on the garbage.

 

[Irenaeus III]

What a shitty post, Roguey. "Who cares?", really? Die in a fire.

Edit: caused by multiple flame arrows

 

[Roguey]

The problem isn't about unrealistic stuff. These are ok, even in rpgs. Problem is about straight out retarded awesome.button® stuff. We're not saying "But XXXX isn't realistic!", we're saying "But XXXX is unbelievably dumb and childish".

I imagine the response to that is "Well yeah, that's what we're going for."

I remember when Josh Sawyer said they actually moved away from their original plan to give the mundanes the awesome Soul powers they described at the beginning of the Kickstarter campaign because it didn't feel Infinity Engine enough. They need an outlet for these urges somewhere.

Experience doesn't make you a good game designer, specially when your whole experience is making shit.

Looked at who wrote the article and threw it on the garbage.

Chapman's experience got him a job at Blizzard, one of the most secure and well-managed (i.e. no death march crunches) employers in the video game industry as long as one doesn't mind being a lobotomized cog.

 

[Irenaeus III]

I remember when Josh Sawyer said they actually moved away from their original plan to give the mundanes the awesome Soul powers they described at the beginning of the Kickstarter campaign because it didn't feel Infinity Engine enough. They need an outlet for these urges somewhere.

Wtf is this about?

 

[Excidium II]

Chapman's experience got him a job at Blizzard, one of the most secure and well-managed (i.e. no death march crunches) employers in the video game industry as long as one doesn't mind being a lobotomized cog.

Good for his career, which I don't give a fuck about. I care about games.

 

[IHaveHugeNick]

Problem is about straight out retarded awesome.button® stuff.

No, the problem is that you're an idiot imagining awesome buttons while there's zero concrete information about the systems.

 

[Irenaeus III]

zero concrete information about the systems

There's information about throwing your companion in the air so he can shoot better with his bow. It sounds silly to me now, but I've seen weirder shit on Cirque du Soleil.