Tyranny Pre-Release Thread

[Duraframe300]

Thanks to checking out the Obsidian thread I now know that Dini McMurry and Matthew Perez from the Pillars team have also been designing areas for Tyranny https://www.linkedin.com/in/dini800 https://www.linkedin.com/in/matthew-perez-4631672a

Perez details that he was only on Pillars for eight months before transitioning.

I thought I mentioned that before.

Justin Bell also did the music again, Lindsey did some art for it and Rose is associate producer on it like she was on Pillars.

 

[Roguey]

I thought I mentioned that before.

Justin Bell also did the music again, Lindsey did some art for it and Rose is associate producer on it like she was on Pillars.

You did in fact mention Perez and I forgot it.

You didn't mention McMurry though so my post still has value.

 

[Duraframe300]

I thought I mentioned that before.

Justin Bell also did the music again, Lindsey did some art for it and Rose is associate producer on it like she was on Pillars.

You did in fact mention Perez and I forgot it.

You didn't mention McMurry though so my post still has value.

Thinking about I may have thought you already said it, because its McMurry. At least I recall her being one of the first to put tyranny on her linkedin.

 

[Immortal]

Pfft. I can pick out pieces from the PoE soundtrack that sound exactly like Baldurs Gate. Overall I'm not sure how Hasbro hasn't sued yet.

Fixed.

A late preview: http://www.hardcoregamer.com/2016/04/04/obsidian-reinvents-rpgs-with-newest-ip-tyranny/200779/

Nothing particularly new, but it also mentions 20-something hour play time:

Keeping a reputation doesn’t mean anything in this game. In some cases, upsetting someone could actually help you more in the long run rather than being their friend. Considering that Obsidian said that the game would run for about twenty some odd hours, the likelihood of replaying the game is actually high. So, if you happen to regret one of your decisions, you have the option to go back and delve into the game and find out the answers to all of your ‘what if’ questions. Obsidian is dealing with a whole lot of experimental concepts that will keep players returning for more; making it so that players aren’t constrained by the notion of following certain arc or making the game look a certain way regardless of what you do. They want the player to be in control and by the looks of it, they’ve delivered.

INB4 the game is just as shallow decision making wise as PoE but they only had the budget for 20 hours of content.

"Wait.. if you decide to kill the child instead of helping him.. he will be missing from the final cutscene!!!"

 

[LESS T_T]

PCGN did an interview with Brian Heins, more about the background, your role in the world, the nature of "evil" and companion interactions: http://www.pcgamesn.com/tyranny/tyr...f-evil-everyone-s-the-hero-of-their-own-story

With GDC and the announcement of Obsidian’s new RPG, Tyranny, in our rear view mirrors, we’ve had plenty of time to get all hot and bothered over the prospect of a potentially fresh and distinct fantasy romp from the house that built Pillars of Eternity. And that means we have more questions, too; questions about what it means to be evil, and what being the employee of a megalomaniacal overlord is really like.

In our quest for more juicy Tyranny details, we’ve roped game director Brian Heins into giving us the skinny on the titular tyrant, Kyros, the player-controlled Fatebinder, and what it means to be an Iron Age Judge Dredd.

Players will jump into the probably expensive boots of a Fatebinder, a lackey of the seemingly immortal leader of a globe-spanning empire, Kyros. Even god-like rulers need a helping hand from time to time.

“Kyros’ empire is a large, sprawling one that covers the known world,” Heins explains. “One person can’t directly control and micromanage everyone, so Kyros has lieutenants called Archons, people who are very powerful, and one of those Archons is your boss, who created the Fatebinders to resolve disputes between the different Archons and the groups that report to them: the armies, the mage guilds and the bureaucrats who run the empire.”

So instead of being an aimless adventurer, you’ll be an employee of the ruler of the known world, solving disputes and dishing out justice, more Judge Dredd than Bilbo Baggins. And this important role will be reflected in the quests.

“We want the quests to reflect your status in the world,” Heins says. “You’re not the one being sent to get the cat out of the tree, you’re the one that has to decide whether an entire population has to be relocated.”

And that means, thankfully, that the fetch and kill quests that fill up so many other RPGs won’t be present in Tyranny. Instead, the Fatebinder will be mediating disputes and enforcing Kyros’ will in the fringe of his empire, the last part of the world to be swallowed up by the tyrant. And being in the most distant part of the empire will make things difficult. While Kyros has ostensibly ended war and conflict by uniting the world, the region that Tyranny takes place in is still adapting to this new regime. While some welcome the structure it provides, the fact that it’s demolishing native culture and subjugating people is a bit of a sticking point for others.

While the Fatebinder may choose their own path when it comes to doing their job, and that can even involve going against Kyros’ rules, the enigmatic overlord is actually surprisingly pragmatic. Certainly his actions can be deemed cruel, but Obsidian is trying to avoid binary morality.

“Kyros cares about the law and everyone conforming to the laws and rules he’s established. Each person has a certain level of autonomy. As long as they don’t try to rebel against Kyros or try to flout the law in any way… Kyros doesn’t really all that much about whether people individually are happy or sad, it’s more about the collective world being improved by Kyros’ law.

“There’s not much room for different opinions and voices in that, so people who don’t agree are generally unhappy, but one of the things that Fatebinders can do is they can resolve these problems and add to some level of contentment to the world while still maintaining Kyros’ law. That’s absolutely a possibility.“

While players will be free to try and make people’s lives better, they can also take on the mantle of villain. It’s not much of a leap, given that the Fatebinder has already been complicit in the conquest of the known world, a conquest that has ravaged many towns and states. But the nature of evil in Tyranny is not easily defined.

In countless RPGs, playing a villain means being an arsehole. It means extorting NPCs, murdering innocents and generally being very rude to everyone. It’s a sort of aimless evil, being bad for the sake of it. It’s possible to be a nasty creep like that in Tyranny, as well, but there’s also the potential for more nuanced villainy.

“There’s that whole notion of the ends justifying the means,” notes Heins. “It’s for the greater good, that lie people tell themselves that can justify any action. Maybe you’re doing horrific things, but it’s all for some greater good. That’s what we’re trying to do when we give players choices: they’re not cartoony black and white, good and evil.”

So players might choose to kill someone in an effort to solve a problem or dispute, and on the surface, a murder doesn’t sounds exactly noble or good – but what if it’s the quickest way to fix the problem? Or the best way to stop other people from suffering? Intention and context are important.

Of course, if you take the murderous or most brutal route all the time, then it doesn’t matter if you think you’re noble, the world is going to react to your decisions. And it’s not just for the big things, either. Act like a dick to a soldier, and his commanding officer might show up later and make your life difficult. And throughout, companions will have their own opinions about how their boss does their job.

They’ll interject in the middle of conversations, letting you know if they think you’re making a mess of things or being a terrible human being, so you’ll constantly be building this relationship with them, both positive and negative, which will impact gameplay and the narrative, as it unlocks special friend and frenemy combos as explained during the GDC demo. They’re not static, though. Characters joining the Fatebinder will have specific combat roles and particular world views, but both of those things can be changed. The former through gear and skill customisation, and the latter through conversation and manipulation.

That last part is especially exciting. I’ve long asserted that Obsidian’s Knights of the Old Republic II contains some of the best and most disturbing interactions with companions in any RPG because, if you decide to dabble in the Dark Side, you can mold even otherwise good characters into Dark Jedi, honing in on their vulnerabilities and using them to recreate them in your own image. You won’t be turning any companions into followers of the Sith philosophy in Tyranny, but it will be possible to manipulate them.

“We want to have moments where you can make choices that can change how your companions view the world, and do great things that build them up or tear them down,” Heins explains. Tearing them down sounds delightfully ominous.

Ultimately, the key to understanding the morality of the world, specifically in regards to Kyros, his Archons, and their Fatebinders, is all in the name: Tyranny. Despite the negative connotations of the word, which conjures up images of military dictatorships and cruel, authoritarian regimes, a tyrant is just a supreme ruler, not necessarily an evil ruler. And thus Tyranny seems to promise an exploration of dominance and control rather than abstractions like evil. And whether you decide to go down the path of hero or villain, you’ll still be put in a position where you need to exert the authority given to you by a tyrant to repair or dominate the world. How you’ll use the tools at your disposal, however, will be up to you.

 

[Kem0sabe]

Sounds like they will have a hard time coming up with enough quest content that ticks those particular criteria. Then again, the game is very small, so they might just pull it off.

 

[HoboForEternity]

i wonder if they can avoid the "mistake" age of decadence has.

i feel in AoD, while the main quest (act 1-3) is very varied among each classes (even the variation within 1 class is amazing), but the sidequest is the same thing over and over with slight variation. aemolas village, clearing the mining outpost, etc etc. in 5th playtrough they just feel as an SP grind.

still, AoD did C&C and multiple paths best, nothing rival it so far, and i understand most of the resources went to the main quest.

 

[Theldaran]

Personally, I think that PoE music was good. To each its own. Sadly no soundtrack is good enough to save a RPG on its own.

*************************************************

Interesting interview about the game. Sadly, it leads to think that this will be another game where combat meshes poorly with story, since it seems it will be dialogue-heavy. A possibility is that combat is a choice you take yourself, or happens when you botch a dialogue.

Also, it's known that the game will be short... maybe few areas with reasonable amount of content, or lots of areas with little to do.

Anyway they're promising lots of C&C so we'll see if they deliver.

 

[Infinitron]

Upcoming episode, I guess?

Uh. I'll listen to the first part.

 

[undecaf]

Useless Wu interview and Fallout 4 DLC pumpup. Obsidian part starts at 26:26.

 

[Infinitron]

Useless Wu interview and Fallout 4 DLC pumpup. Obsidian part starts at 26:26.

That's what the little green label things are for.

Nothing much new here but the question and answer at 33:30 are kind of sad, heh.

 

[undecaf]

That's what the little green label things are for.

So they seem. Thought they were just listener comments so I ignored them.

 

[Joni Odin von Hassenstein]

Oh shit, I don't think I wanna click dat.

 

[Prime Junta]

"You are surrounded by people who are the worst of humanity" ... hmm, that sounds pretty interesting actually. It would be neat if it makes being a goody-two-shoes hard.

Spoiler

that was from the sexism part of the program obv

 

[Immortal]

Useless Wu interview and Fallout 4 DLC pumpup. Obsidian part starts at 26:26.

That's what the little green label things are for.

Nothing much new here but the question and answer at 33:30 are kind of sad, heh.

Called it.. Tyranny = Fargo's Definition of Unique CnC.. AKA over 1 trillion ways to play the game.

 

[Infinitron]

That's not what the question at 33:30 is about, but okay.

 

[agris]

"You are surrounded by people who are the worst of humanity"

So you're at a gaming convention?

 

[Prime Junta]

"You are surrounded by people who are the worst of humanity"

So you're at a gaming convention?

 

[Lacrymas]

"You are surrounded by people who are the worst of humanity" doesn't sound too appealing tbh, that's not what interesting characters are. I remember when I started reading the Preacher comics I couldn't stomach the lead character (Jesse Custer?) because he was just a douchebag with no redeeming qualities so I stopped reading it. I fear that this is what this is going to turn into.

 

[Roguey]

Lacrymas confirmed for

or perhaps

 

[Space Insect]

This is fluctuating between "ebul worst of humanity" government and "Greek tyranny" governement.

 

[Sòren]

"You are surrounded by people who are the worst of humanity"

So you're at a gaming convention?

 

[Roguey]

So guess who's played Tyranny for three hours these past two weeks? http://steamcommunity.com/id/baby_goat/games/

 

[Excidium II]

So guess who's played Tyranny for three hours these past two weeks? http://steamcommunity.com/id/baby_goat/games/

Has he posted anything on SA?

 

[Roguey]

So guess who's played Tyranny for three hours these past two weeks? http://steamcommunity.com/id/baby_goat/games/

Has he posted anything on SA?

He's not going to violate a NDA, no.