That'd be a huge disappointment.
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Pillars of Eternity 2 announcement incoming?
- Thread starter The Wart
- Start date
That'd be a huge disappointment.
But Bloodlines was heavily relying on being first person. Just think of the ghost mansion level, how do you present that in isometric 2D? Or the schizophrenic club owner, the sneaking into downtown apartments, and generally all the dialogue with weirdly awesome characters (and their facial animations)
I'm not saying it's better or anything, just that I think that, within the confines of the developer and the likely budget, isometric could work well. You lose some things, sure, but I don't see why you couldn't make a very evocative V:TM game in other ways from a drawn out perspective.
decoyplatypus
Member
I think isometric is the most likely scenario for a hypothetical Obsidian-developed, Paradox-funded Vampire game. Certainly a 3D game with production in the neighborhood of recent Deus Ex games is out of the question. But what about a middle ground where you've got a 3D game with mixed 1st- and 3rd-person perspectives, only the art assets and geometry are deliberately limited, like how they might be for a shoestring indie game? Would even a retro-styled 3D game (just enough to allow Bloodlines-style gameplay) blow Paradox's budget?
To be fair to the bold, there was a massive sidequest somewhat early into PoE that had the party optionally sneaking their way into a giant fortress floor by floor through various puzzle means that I found worked quite well amidst the confines of its engine and isometric mouse-driven design.
The rest comes across a bit superfluous to me. Yes, the hotel sequence in Bloodlines was wonderful, but fits beautifully into the tone and design for that game and isn't exactly necessary for Pillars to succeed(and many would argue a game like Planescape managed just fine delivering similarly moody settings and atmosphere in the Infinity engine, just with less jump scares).
Visual expressiveness in conversations isn't a real requirement either given how writing and player agency is largely the focal point. Tyranny is a great recent example of this and is no less effective in providing nuanced reading-between-the-lines conversing that didn't require modelled gesturing.
I am not against the idea of shifting the perspective, but I don't feel the overhead perspective is at all limiting the creativity either.
The thing is -- why? Isometric CRPG's are clearly Obsidian's strong suit. 3D adds to the game, sure, but enough that you'd rather have a low budget "retro styled" 3D compared to the environments that we got in Pillars or Tyranny?
Storytelling is king in these games anyways. If they can make an interesting scenario and actual interesting decision making then I'm there. Don't really care if the game is 2d or 3d. None of this weird "mechanics" argument, where mechanics, basically translates into a poorly done dark souls clone or trying to ape everything about a game to the inspiration's detriment.
Plumpbiscuit
Member
decoyplatypus
Member
Obsidian's best game was 3D, and Alpha Protocol had its moments too.
The reason you'd want a spiritual successor to Bloodlines to be 3D is that the original was 3D, and some aspects of the stealth gameplay (particularly the use of vertical space) work a lot better in three dimensions.
That said, I generally agree 2D is a better choice for a developer like Obsidian making low-to-mid-budget RPGs that emphasize mechanical depth and choice and consequences. And I wouldn't personally be upset by an isometric Vampire game. I would just be excited the game was happening.
The_Spaniard
Netmarble
Time and money. It's not as easy as flipping a switch, a lot of hard work goes into a change like that, as well as fixing anything that it breaks, and finding all the new bugs that it may introduce.
Even updating within an engine branch can cause issues. At one point our Shroud (capes and cloth simulation) plugin stopped working on Linux after a Unity update, and it took a while to find a solution.
I'm currently on the back third of my first real playthrough... Act 3 and White March part 2 content. Roundabout level 14. I couldn't be more pumped for this! I've always had an appreciation for this one even though my first time through got crippled by some stat bugs which caused me to set it aside.
Psychoward
Banned
Man, I expected it to be pillars 2 but the project Louisiana codename had me hyped it was a 3d Fallout in New Orleans. To go from a sequel to one of my favorite games of all time to being a sequel to a game that I could never even get in to the character creator and Obsidian support never replied to my emails or forum posts is disappointing.
Happy for the people that could actually run Pillars 1 without issue at least, maybe when I get a new PC I'll re-buy it.
Happy for the people that could actually run Pillars 1 without issue at least, maybe when I get a new PC I'll re-buy it.
Psychoward
Banned
New Vegas, even if Bethesda rushed them was a AAA game. And it turned out to be arguably the best 3D rpg of all time.
Shake Appeal
Member
The previous slide was clearly Eder talking about Eothas, so yes, it is clearly Pillars 2.
Anoregon
The flight plan I just filed with the agency list me, my men, Dr. Pavel here. But only one of you!
The one improvement I'd want from a story perspective in the sequel is just a more compelling/interesting antagonist. Irenicus is obviously one of the GOATs, but Sarevok in the original BG was also a very effective villain. Thaos on the other hand just never really did much for me. The way his relationship to the protagonist is revealed never felt terribly exciting and as a character in general he never really reached any sort of super impactful apex.
MisterShine
Member
Agreed overall, but I actually thought Thaos was a decent villain, he just had very little payoff. All of the important bits about your history with him are revealed in the last 5% or so of the game, and he seems to barely remember or even care about you/what you did. The conversation however at the end with
The lady leading the 'rebellion' of sorts, I thought was super well done especially if you said you were related.
Considering how Obsidian was denied bonuses for New Vegas because of 1 point on metacritic (which was mostly Bethesda's fault because they were in charge of QA and bugs were a major negative) I imagine the relationship there is still pretty sour. I can't see them working together again any time soon.
Psychoward
Banned
You'd think but iirc every time Obsidian has been asked about making another Fallout they said they'd still love to and are waiting on Bethesda.
decoyplatypus
Member
I think you have pinpointed the two story choices that hamstring Thaos. First, his actual purpose is held back until the very end of the game, which makes for a mildly interesting mystery and reveal, but it leaves engagement with his purpose, for 95% of the game, elliptical and indirect. Second, his relationship to the watcher can't provide much spark to the story because
there is little reason for the player to care about what past incarnations of his/her watcher were or did. The game sometimes gestures at how different cultures understand the cycle of souls, but I don't think Obsidian fully grasped how abstract this is for players. Locating identity in a soul is a tough business, philosophically. And grappling with the watcher's past is not a central concern of Pillars of Eternity the way it was for, say, the Nameless One in Planescape: Torment.
Obsidian artists made this first person Unreal 4 demo last year:
http://www.pcgamer.com/obsidian-devs-recreate-star-wars-mos-eisley-spaceport-in-unreal-engine-4/
This was apparently a side project that a bunch of their artists worked on in their spare time. However, it suggests to me that Obsidian is looking into 3D first person gameplay and that it has people capable of putting 3D environments together with a reasonable amount of time and resources.
Also, InXile, which is a similarly mid-scale developer is doing Bard's Tale 4 as a first person game in Unreal 4. So I don't think it's out of the question for a studio like Obsidian to make a 3D game that looks quite nice. Though I have to be very careful about scope and asset generation!
And here I was trying to play through Planescape again... guess I'll finish my PoE game first.
Obsidian would love to work on a new Fallout, they have stated that multiple times. That said, I doubt Bethesda is going to be willing to give the franchise out of hands again considering how hard they're trying to completely ignore the existence of New Vegas.
It's been openly mentioned as somewhat of a foregone conclusion, but hasn't been officially announced. This is leading up to that, from the looks of things!
Herr Schwarz
Banned
Dragon Age Origins style graphics and gameplay with the art direction of Obsidian... I'd take that over any prerendered nonsense.
Gameplay in Origins and NWN is so good. Plus the cinematic and the dialogue in NWN and Origins was the sweet spot, not too cinematic but good enough.
I miss the Dragon Age and NWN combat, I'd take it over the PoE combat any day.
At this point for me now we've had Dragon Age Origins and NWN it just seems like PoE looks like it does in terms of graphics, because it's cheaper to do, and that's it.
We all know there's a better direction but it's more expensive to achieve. I wish EA would take Dragon Age back to the original gameplay eugh.
I think that if you could wave a wand and say "Hey, now you have more money for development!" then the "better direction" would just be to expand the scope of your inexpensively-made game, or to make two inexpensive games, rather than pouring a disproportionate amount of resources into something that just offers a few marginal (mostly aesthetic) perks.
Metroidvania
People called Romanes they go the house?
If you want an Isometric Vampire, look more towards Redemption than Bloodlines.
I'd give an isometric Bloodlines-inspired game a fair shake, but I think it would lose a lot in the transition from traditional 1st/3rd person camera.
Excited for Pillars, though, even if I do need to go back and finish the first one. Stopped before March came out, and I've heard that it solves a few of the issues I had in the base game.
Also, ditto on the loading time needing to be shortened. Shit got ridiculous.
I'd give an isometric Bloodlines-inspired game a fair shake, but I think it would lose a lot in the transition from traditional 1st/3rd person camera.
Excited for Pillars, though, even if I do need to go back and finish the first one. Stopped before March came out, and I've heard that it solves a few of the issues I had in the base game.
Also, ditto on the loading time needing to be shortened. Shit got ridiculous.
decoyplatypus
Member
I think one presentation upgrade Obsidian could toy with for PoE2 would be Fallout-style animated head-shots for major NPC conversations.
It wouldn't necessarily have to be 3D models, and I'm not even sure animation matters all that much, but I think the impression that you, the player, are looking directly into the face of certain characters can make a difference in how you relate to those characters. I say this despite the fact that my favorite story-driven games mostly rely on text boxes and accompanying mini-portraits, just like PoE.
It wouldn't necessarily have to be 3D models, and I'm not even sure animation matters all that much, but I think the impression that you, the player, are looking directly into the face of certain characters can make a difference in how you relate to those characters. I say this despite the fact that my favorite story-driven games mostly rely on text boxes and accompanying mini-portraits, just like PoE.
BrownieBrownBrown
Neo Member
Is Pillars any good? looking for a single player game.
decoyplatypus
Member
Yes. It's good.
Yea it's fantastic.
superdeluxe
Member
Released through Paradox again?
bonesmccoy
Banned
Tried to love PoE, but it wasn't for me. By the time I reached the city, I was bored of the combat, quests and writing. It pushed me from instabuy-Obsidian-guy to skipping Tyranny, and likely whatever else they put out in the near future.
I beat the first one when it came out. Had promise but the plot was forgettable and overall it didn't hold a candle to BG2. Frankly only thing I remember from the game is Grieving Mother. They better have better encounter design and much more spell variety in the second one. It was held back a lot compared to BG2 battle wise since there is no hard ailments or counters to anything. No contingencies, spell triggers, hard ailments.
Tyranny had an amazing lore and writing but terrible combat. It's clear they've had issue balancing the game because of their free leveling up system. I guess they expected people to branch out but if you went 100% in on build for all characters hard mode was a piece of cake. Magic starts weak but I pumped all lore into my MC and had OP spells because the game didn't plan you could stack so much sigils. Add to the fact there is no spell book and spells are only on cooldown it was very easy to abuse.
I will be in for a cheap copy probably. Hoping it's like a BG ->BG 2 transition.
Tyranny had an amazing lore and writing but terrible combat. It's clear they've had issue balancing the game because of their free leveling up system. I guess they expected people to branch out but if you went 100% in on build for all characters hard mode was a piece of cake. Magic starts weak but I pumped all lore into my MC and had OP spells because the game didn't plan you could stack so much sigils. Add to the fact there is no spell book and spells are only on cooldown it was very easy to abuse.
I will be in for a cheap copy probably. Hoping it's like a BG ->BG 2 transition.
Herr Schwarz
Banned
I wouldn't describe the combat between PoE and DA:O as "marginal (mostly asthetic)" nor would I with the cinematicish dialogues between Mask of the Betrayer and PoE.
The 3d environments was the natural step up from the old school isometric style - the next step from Baldur's Gate was to full 3d in NWN. We could have such a good looking game but instead we get stuck in the retro nostalgia grab aesthetics and it sucks.
It's such a shame there aren't any Dragon Age Origins games out there anymore. Obsidian are capable, but they've clearly got a money making strategy and can pump the old school games out now so, eh. Maybe EA takes a U-Turn.
No, it doesn't. I love that style and I'm glad as hell it came back.
ThoseDeafMutes
Member
They age better than 3d aesthetically, but don't look good when your resolution increases unless you have higher quality assets available.
Isn't the way to avoid that to use hi-res assets and only "downsample" them for lower resolutions?
ThoseDeafMutes
Member
You can do that, although it means that there's no performance benefit for rendering at low resolution. Might work depending on how light weight your game and assets are.
loganclaws
Plane Escape Torment
Ugh, this god story is so boring, wish they would make the story more personal and grounded.
Moff
Member
well tyranny had at least portraits with changing expressions, still small sized, but it made a difference. i expect them to at least carry over all of the tyranny UI improvements, including the highlighted lore keywords in texts and dialogue.
I agree, I enjoyed POE more than most back then, but looking back now, it feels generic, especially compared to Tyranny's great setting. I want them to go crazy with POE2 and blow my mind.
Brad Grenz
Member
They solicited testimonials from backers of the first game through Kickstarter a few weeks back. I assume this will roll into a crowd funding campaign for the sequel on Fig. Like Banner Saga 2 seemed to prove, the marketing value of crowd funding can be enormously valuable even if you have the means to self fund.
decoyplatypus
Member
I'm in the minority on this, but Tyranny's animated portraits didn't do much for me. They were cruder than Pillars's static portraits but not expressive enough to get much out of the animation.
I don't think it's fair to assume from the quotations we've seen that we'll be getting an impersonal story about the gods. The Eder quotation, for example, is about a specific human character's personal relationship with and fears about his god. Incidentally, PoE's writing was at its strongest when it homed in on the companions' connections to major plot elements--Eder and the Saint's War, Durance and Magran, Grieving Mother and the hollowborn. A Pillars sequel that found a way to move the companions' stories closer to the center of the story could be quite grounded and personal, even if the backdrop was a major cosmological event.
Shake Appeal
Member
Pillars 1 already looks not great on my 1440p monitor.
Edit: Also, I think I'm alone in liking the grander arc and narrative sweep of Pillars. That's some of the most interesting writing in the game. In general, the harder it leans on established D&D and fantasy schlock, the more boring it is. The more it leans on the colonial/revolution stuf, the animancy and tinkering with souls, the gods and
what we ultimately learn about them
I also think it has some of the best companion plots in CRPGs. People complain because the quests themselves are fairly insubstantial and they all feel "disappointing" in how they resolve... but that second thing is the point!
I want them to go full-weird with it. Embrace the 18th/19th century stuff more. Sawyer, if you're reading this, your history major and the mashing up, e.g., of Native Americans and Celts as colonized peoples is the kind of thing that makes this world good. More Dunryd Row and hack animancers and firearms, fewer elves and wizards and enchanted daggers.
Lister
Banned
Yeah I loved the main plot line of Pillars 2. The main issue was that it all came to a fore through a single conversation with a single NPC you hardly know much about just before the game ends.
You can tell there was a meatier last act in the plans that never came to be. but: (end game spoiler)
You can tell there was a meatier last act in the plans that never came to be. but: (end game spoiler)
Gods that were "programmed" and created by people using animancy is some cool shit.
JayWood2010
Member
I bought this game a long time ago, and have yet to play it. Is the story good in it?
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