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[Taruranto]

Viconia was great (Not so much in ToB, but then again, most things sucked in ToB), the other were meh. Still not tremulously offensive, though. MoB has also had romances.

You really need in-depth relationships with companions however, PoE kinda failed with that. Planescape didn't have romances too, and yet we all remember every single interaction. Characters reacting to the events and even treating to leave the party if you go against their personal beliefs are pretty important things if you want the characters to feel alive.

 

[Durante]

Planescape actually does have romances to some extent. Or well, at least Annah can get quite infatuated with the Nameless One. But Planescape: Torment is on an entirely different level in companion writing.

I think having well-written companions with interesting stories is incredibly important, but I don't think it's essential that you can "romance" them -- or even be their friend.
Durance was probably my favourite companion in PoE. Fantastic character. Also, Levenshtein distance 1.

 

[GordonHalfman]

Dragon's being properly threatening was cool. Not like the weedy BG2 dragons. They need a proper dragon theme this time tho, I don't think PoE had anything as memorable as this.

 

[Shake Appeal]

Planescape actually does have romances to some extent. Or well, at least Annah can get quite infatuated with the Nameless One. But Planescape: Torment is on an entirely different level in companion writing.

Yeah, there are subtle romance options for Annah and Falls-from Grace.

I like romances as a concept, but the general execution of them is creepy to me, because the underlying sexual politics are always "say the things people want to hear and eventually you will fuck." Which is... not a very interesting or sophisticated understanding of relationships.

 

[dude]

Planescape actually does have romances to some extent. Or well, at least Annah can get quite infatuated with the Nameless One. But Planescape: Torment is on an entirely different level in companion writing.

I think having well-written companions with interesting stories is incredibly important, but I don't think it's essential that you can "romance" them -- or even be their friend.
Durance was probably my favourite companion in PoE. Fantastic character. Also, Levenshtein distance 1.

I think you can also sort of romance Fall From Grace, or maybe I'm remembering wrong?

I think of companion relationships just as I think of stories - They need substance, they need to surprise me and give me meaningful choices. I mean, I expect the cast to be as good as any cast I'd see in a TV show or movie - Which for me, includes romance, friendship, rivalries and influencing each other. I felt like companions in PoE were like walking exposition dispensers. Sure, some of their stories were interesting, but I never felt like I was part of that story to any meaningful extent. I got to learn more about some of the characters, but I didn't get to have any sort of meaningful interaction with them.
This is why I didn't especially liked Durance. Sure, some of the writing was interesting, but it was mostly un-interactive walls of text I could unlock.

 

[BrokenFiction]

I wake up and we're almost there. Well done, Earth!

 

[Durante]

This is obviously personal preference, but I feel like "character development" as a whole is somewhat overrated in media. Or not really overrated maybe, but too much importance is placed on it. I've known people in real life who haven't really changed much in years. Most games take place over a few weeks or months, and yet there seems to be this implicit expectation that everyone involved will change fundamentally. More than that, often people have the additional conceit that not only will they change, their PC is the impetus of that change and directly influences its direction.

I think that's OK if it's for one or two characters, but as a general pattern it strikes me as very silly.

 

[Sou Da]

This is obviously personal preference, but I feel like "character development" as a whole is somewhat overrated in media. Or not really overrated maybe, but too much importance is placed on it. I've known people in real life who haven't really changed much in years. Most games take place over a few weeks or months, and yet there seems to be this implicit expectation that everyone involved will change fundamentally. More than that, often people have the additional conceit that not only will they change, their PC is the impetus of that change and directly influences its direction.

I think that's OK if it's for one or two characters, but as a general pattern it strikes me as very silly.

It all depends on what changes about the character what and events are the impetus for change. Also I'd say there are plenty of decent stories about characters who don't change or resist the world changing them.

Edit: With CRPGs it's likely related to the average player's desire to have a tangible effect on people, places and things in the game. Companions are a constant so it's a good avenue to flex the 'ol "C&C" muscles.

 

[CrichtonKicks]

This is obviously personal preference, but I feel like "character development" as a whole is somewhat overrated in media. Or not really overrated maybe, but too much importance is placed on it. I've known people in real life who haven't really changed much in years. Most games take place over a few weeks or months, and yet there seems to be this implicit expectation that everyone involved will change fundamentally. More than that, often people have the additional conceit that not only will they change, their PC is the impetus of that change and directly influences its direction.

I think that's OK if it's for one or two characters, but as a general pattern it strikes me as very silly.

Character development doesn't have to mean change. I think it's more about getting to understand what makes a person tick. Especially in a traditional RPG plotline where your companions are total strangers when you meet them in the game.

Further, character development can be represented through the bonds you create among your team mates. This isn't about an change in personality but seeing the ties of friendship, rivalry, and sometimes romance grow and tighten throughout the game. And it shouldn't be done with the PC at the center. Those ties instead should develop across the whole team. Why not have two team members be the ones to start a romance or become best bros instead of it always being the PC?

 

[Jibbajabbawockky]

what? Viconia and Jaheira were both great. Aerie was a bit awkward, but still far from bad.

I think intimate relationships with companions - not just in terms of romance, but in terms of actual deep connection, was noticeably missing from PoE for me. Implementing deeper relationships, whether romantic or not, is exactly where I want them to spend their resources. I don't think it takes more effort to write a successful romance than a successful intimate friendship.

I think you can also sort of romance Fall From Grace, or maybe I'm remembering wrong?

I think of companion relationships just as I think of stories - They need substance, they need to surprise me and give me meaningful choices. I mean, I expect the cast to be as good as any cast I'd see in a TV show or movie - Which for me, includes romance, friendship, rivalries and influencing each other. I felt like companions in PoE were like walking exposition dispensers. Sure, some of their stories were interesting, but I never felt like I was part of that story to any meaningful extent. I got to learn more about some of the characters, but I didn't get to have any sort of meaningful interaction with them.
This is why I didn't especially liked Durance. Sure, some of the writing was interesting, but it was mostly un-interactive walls of text I could unlock.

100% agree with everything you're saying.

With romances in games like BG2, I found them super memorable in part because its another deeper avenue for making the relationship between the PC and the companion feel unique. That could be a deep friendship just as easily but with the romance paths, there is some measure of exclusivity there, so its basically just another choice/consequence and like in BG2's case, made the characters have a ton more personality and feel much more like actual characters and not walking exposition dispensers. Having a romance or friendship available is just another layer of reactivity that I really enjoy. And BG2 did those pretty well compared to later BioWare games, since the romances rarely just ended with sex; they kept going well beyond that.

Like you said though, part of my issue with PoE was how some of the characters felt kind of dry, I guess. They had some super interesting concepts and themes surrounding some of them but they often didn't have a ton of reactivity or personality towards the PC.

I think Alistair and Morrigan from Dragon Age: Origins are actually pretty good characters in this sense. Where they're pretty important characters in the plot at the end of the game and your choices surrounding them are heavily influenced by whether you've had a romance with them or not, in a way that makes sense.

Basically, I'd be really kind of bummed if PoE 2 didn't have good romances or friendships in some deeper way than PoE1.

Further, character development can be represented through the bonds you create among your team mates. This isn't about an change in personality but seeing the ties of friendship, rivalry, and sometimes romance grow and tighten throughout the game. And it shouldn't be done with the PC at the center. Those ties instead should develop across the whole team. Why not have two team members be the ones to start a romance or become best bros instead of it always being the PC?

I don't disagree with you there. I can imagine some devs not doing what you're saying since it runs the risk of alienating the player in some way, especially if you're stuck seeing all your companions become best bros and get entangled in deep romances while your PC is just stuck with the companions reciting Wikipedia entries on racial lore to him/her. If you're going to have NPCs/companions doing that sort of thing among themselves, then you'd have to make sure the PC can do that sort of thing with other companions too.

 

[Famassu]

This is obviously personal preference, but I feel like "character development" as a whole is somewhat overrated in media. Or not really overrated maybe, but too much importance is placed on it. I've known people in real life who haven't really changed much in years. Most games take place over a few weeks or months, and yet there seems to be this implicit expectation that everyone involved will change fundamentally. More than that, often people have the additional conceit that not only will they change, their PC is the impetus of that change and directly influences its direction.

I think that's OK if it's for one or two characters, but as a general pattern it strikes me as very silly.

Character development makes for a far more engaging narrative than characters going through no development. A lot of things in storytelling & fiction aren't realistic but they make for a far better story than sticking to something more realistic.

If people in your life don't change, then I'd wager a guess that the changes are either too subtle or otherwise such that you don't place much importance on those changes to notice them or they just don't have much in life that would push them into new directions. Or people aren't put to the kind of situations where they could show their "growth".

 

[LurkerPrime]

Definitely agree about the whole party interacting. I feel like that sort of thing dropped off a cliff after Dragon Age: Origins. (I recall KotOR and Baldur's Gate 2 being really good at it).

That is a simple thing that I'd love to see more of in PoE2. More inter-party banter! (I honestly don't remember if PoE1 had any of this...)

This is obviously personal preference, but I feel like "character development" as a whole is somewhat overrated in media. Or not really overrated maybe, but too much importance is placed on it. I've known people in real life who haven't really changed much in years. Most games take place over a few weeks or months, and yet there seems to be this implicit expectation that everyone involved will change fundamentally. More than that, often people have the additional conceit that not only will they change, their PC is the impetus of that change and directly influences its direction.

I think that's OK if it's for one or two characters, but as a general pattern it strikes me as very silly.

It's not even about choice and consequence or anything, but NPCs/party members acting as characters rather than props. Like, too many games treat party members like extensions of the player to be done with as the player pleases, which is a gross underappreciation of their potential as characters and agents in their own world; in the worst cases, it's like their existence ends the moment they join the player. It would make for much more interesting games and worlds if they had more consistency.

Oddly, of all games Dragon Age: Origins handled NPC agency excellently. Party members had personality on top of agency--they could directly decide their own fate. So, if the player did something they vehemently opposed, party members could leave or even attack the player. It doesn't have much scope beyond that (except in vague epilogues) but it is still so much more than most party members ever get.

And as far as altering personalities and stuff, yeah, the timeline is crunched down a lot for games, but when you're deciding the fate of entire factions, if not the world (in most games) it makes a lot of sense for them to be heavily affected. Not to mention all of the experience, skill, loot, and power they accumulate by virtue of being in proximity to the player.



But, yeah. Romances in RPGs are often handled weird though, I think. I don't know what it would take to really do well Probably scaling it back from "romance" into something with more gradients, like rivalry/friendship/romance depending on the character in question. (DA2 tried this but failed hard.) But then it balloons the writing scale, because everyone will have different inclinations for how to treat the potential relationship candidates.

I don't know that PoE2 really has the scope for something like romance (or whatever) to be successful. PoE1, IIRC, was pretty spartan with character interactions, so it'd be a big change. I'm curious if one of their updates will mention anything like this.

 

[CrichtonKicks]

Definitely agree about the whole party interacting. I feel like that sort of thing dropped off a cliff after Dragon Age: Origins. (I recall KotOR and Baldur's Gate 2 being really good at it).

That's actually the thing that Dragon Age 2 kind of nails. It does a real good job at handling the characters and their relationships with Hawke and each other over the 10 year game period.

 

[decoyplatypus]

In casual conversation it is common to use "character development" as a catch-all term for things we learn about a character or things a character does. But for this discussion I think we should distinguish between "development," meaning how a character evolves over the course of a work, and "revelation," meaning how a character's nature is revealed. There are many great characters who do not change in any significant way, and their arcs consist in what is revealed about them. E.g., Gus and Call don't change much over the course of Lonesome Dove, but their natures (and here I do not mean simply "their pasts") are revealed by the action of the book.

It's natural for RPG players to have a bias toward character development, because they generally want to make choices and feel like those choices had an impact on the world ("I helped Veronica with this problem, and now she sees the world differently and is going to do X instead of Y"). But it's not the only way of doing things, and I can't see any reason why it would be inherently better.

 

[Anoregon]

Nice to see it's closing it on 1 million already. Very likely to cross the initial goal today.

 

[decoyplatypus]

That is a simple thing that I'd love to see more of in PoE2. More inter-party banter! (I honestly don't remember if PoE1 had any of this...)

PoE1 had lots of great banter! Granted, it didn't involve the game stopping while one companion interrogated another, but it was totally worth trying out different party combinations. Off the top of my head, Eder tries to pet Itumaak, Hiravias offends Pallegina, everyone mocks Durance, Zahua trips balls...

 

[dude]

This is obviously personal preference, but I feel like "character development" as a whole is somewhat overrated in media. Or not really overrated maybe, but too much importance is placed on it. I've known people in real life who haven't really changed much in years. Most games take place over a few weeks or months, and yet there seems to be this implicit expectation that everyone involved will change fundamentally. More than that, often people have the additional conceit that not only will they change, their PC is the impetus of that change and directly influences its direction.

I think that's OK if it's for one or two characters, but as a general pattern it strikes me as very silly.

I guess it's a preference thing. I think that media is supposed to be a dramatization of real life rather than a replication of it. Just like my character shapes the world, while most people will not, I want them to shape the people around them to a degree - with all the consequences that would imply. I mean, media mostly deals with extremes, because that's what's interesting. Most people won't change much in a year, but under extreme conditions, you might go through self-reflection, and suddenly change very quickly.
And as others have said, I don't expect their personality to change or for my character to decide for them what to do - But I do want to feel like I'm having an actual discourse with them as more than simply travelling buddies.

 

[Anno]

Eder and Sagani are basically always in my party because I need to hear Eder lamenting that Itumaak shouldn't be so fluffy if he doesn't want to be pet.

 

[Durante]

Character development doesn't have to mean change. I think it's more about getting to understand what makes a person tick.

I fully agree, but I think PoE was excellent in that regard. At least for characters like Durance and Grieving Mother.

In casual conversation it is common to use "character development" as a catch-all term for things we learn about a character or things a character does. But for this discussion I think we should distinguish between "development," meaning how a character evolves over the course of a work, and "revelation," meaning how a character's nature is revealed.

Good point, in my previous post I was using it strictly to mean evolving characters. My main point is that I don't think that all or even most characters need to radically evolve in an RPG.

That is a simple thing that I'd love to see more of in PoE2. More inter-party banter! (I honestly don't remember if PoE1 had any of this...)

PoE1 had quite a bit of banter, both situational and party composition dependent. I enjoyed it a lot.

 

[Jag]

I supposed now I should probably pick up the expansion for the first game and give that a shot.

I should as well, but I don't have my old save, so I would have to start from the beginning again.

Not sure if I should restart with White March or try Tyranny. I need my RPG fix and DOS: 2 is not coming fast enough. What say you GAF?

 

[MisterShine]

For those who've played the first game: what character are you planning to import?

I've got my Arctic Elf Cipher near the end of the game, but I've hardly used the companions that seem to be coming back.

I've also got my Goldpact Orlan with a terrible secret

Spoiler

He's a kind person deep down and cares for the downtrodden

that I originally played through the game as who I still love.

However, Cipher seems WAY more plot relevant than all the other classes so I'm not sure what to do...

edit:

...
Not sure if I should restart with White March or try Tyranny. I need my RPG fix and DOS: 2 is not coming fast enough. What say you GAF?

Finishing Tyranny made me REALLY want to go back and play PoE again, which eventually got me this!

So I definitely recommend Tyranny!

Spoiler

Humblebrag!

 

[Altazor]

I should as well, but I don't have my old save, so I would have to start from the beginning again.

Not sure if I should restart with White March or try Tyranny. I need my RPG fix and DOS: 2 is not coming fast enough. What say you GAF?

well, correct me if I'm wrong but Tyranny seems to be a shorter game (I haven't played it yet tbh) so you could play that as a sort of appetizer before delving into Eora once again with PoE+White March.

EDIT: 90% of the goal so far! Yay! Can't wait for the stretch goals.

 

[StereoVsn]

I fully agree, but I think PoE was excellent in that regard. At least for characters like Durance and Grieving Mother.

Good point, in my previous post I was using it strictly to mean evolving characters. My main point is that I don't think that all or even most characters need to radically evolve in an RPG.

PoE1 had quite a bit of banter, both situational and party composition dependent. I enjoyed it a lot.

Weren't both of those characters written by Chris Avellone who got booted from Obsidian?

In general I didn't care for a single character in PoE. I couldn't care about their problems, issues, whether they die or live, etc... They were just expositions and walls of text. Contrast to say BG2 or PT where characters were interesting (well, some of them at least) and felt much more "alive".

 

[Anno]

So how much would people care if, say, the five companions shown off so far (Eder, Aloth, Pallegina, bird ranger lady and pirate Orlan) were what we had for the game and stretch goals focused more on increased dialogue and interaction between them rather than more companions? I think it would be better given the scope and budget of the game, and with multiclassing you could still kinda cover all the class compositions that you might want.

 

[Sou Da]

Weren't both of those characters written by Chris Avellone who got booted from Obsidian?

In general I didn't care for a single character in PoE. I couldn't care about their problems, issues, whether they die or live, etc... They were just expositions and walls of text. Contrast to say BG2 or PT where characters were interesting (well, some of them at least) and felt much more "alive".

I liked most of them but the only ones I'd call interesting are Pallegina and the Avellone characters.

I don't even understand why Aumaua character was a party member, he was just a stretched out Stonghold npc.

 

[HStallion]

Just rolled over the 1 million dollar mark.

 

[decoyplatypus]

For those who've played the first game: what character are you planning to import?

Spoiler

Humblebrag!

I'll probably import my cipher. She's the only one of my PCs who has run the WM content. And I don't think I did anything too goofy with her attributes/abilities or choices during the game.

 

[Massicot]

Going to hit its goal in under 24 hours. Crazy.

 

[kevin1025]

So happy to see this about to hit its goal. It's a good feeling to see these games still getting the love they deserve after the dark ages only a couple of years ago.

 

[Rockin' Ranger]

For those who've played the first game: what character are you planning to import?

I've got my Arctic Elf Cipher near the end of the game, but I've hardly used the companions that seem to be coming back.

I've also got my Goldpact Orlan with a terrible secret

Spoiler

He's a kind person deep down and cares for the downtrodden

that I originally played through the game as who I still love.

I'll be going with my Moon Godlike Druid with a cat spiritshift form. She was an Old Vailian noblewoman before being disowned by her family and heading to the Dyrwood with the goal of regaining her lost status. She cared more about that than helping the downtrodden and could be rather cruel to anyone who looked to stop her from reaching that goal.

 

[Steez]

Finishing Tyranny made me REALLY want to go back and play PoE again, which eventually got me this!

I started planning for The Ultimate a few days ago. How'd you do it? Paladin?

 

[Lister]

For those who've played the first game: what character are you planning to import?

I've got my Arctic Elf Cipher near the end of the game, but I've hardly used the companions that seem to be coming back.

I've also got my Goldpact Orlan with a terrible secret

Spoiler

He's a kind person deep down and cares for the downtrodden

that I originally played through the game as who I still love.

However, Cipher seems WAY more plot relevant than all the other classes so I'm not sure what to do...

edit:



Finishing Tyranny made me REALLY want to go back and play PoE again, which eventually got me this!

So I definitely recommend Tyranny!

Spoiler

Humblebrag!

Same boat. I have 4 characters but only finished the entire game twice with two of them. My original Ranger - Kinthalis the wise, was my first playthrough, so I feel like he should be the one to go, but my current character I'm playing through the White March with is a kick ass rogue tha tI relaly enjoy playing.

 

[Lister]

Is anyone else picking up the D&D miniatures? They look cool, but $40 is a bit steep after spending $99 on my pledge....

 

[Kimaka]

I think you can also sort of romance Fall From Grace, or maybe I'm remembering wrong?

I think of companion relationships just as I think of stories - They need substance, they need to surprise me and give me meaningful choices. I mean, I expect the cast to be as good as any cast I'd see in a TV show or movie - Which for me, includes romance, friendship, rivalries and influencing each other. I felt like companions in PoE were like walking exposition dispensers. Sure, some of their stories were interesting, but I never felt like I was part of that story to any meaningful extent. I got to learn more about some of the characters, but I didn't get to have any sort of meaningful interaction with them.
This is why I didn't especially liked Durance. Sure, some of the writing was interesting, but it was mostly un-interactive walls of text I could unlock.

I would have liked Durance more had he been in a one and done quest line rather than a companion. Halfway through the game, I dreaded talking to him because I had to navigate through lines and lines of text just to get to his next personal quest update. He was interesting (same with Grieving Mother), but I struggled to give any sorts of shits about him.

For those who've played the first game: what character are you planning to import?

I've got my Arctic Elf Cipher near the end of the game, but I've hardly used the companions that seem to be coming back.

I've also got my Goldpact Orlan with a terrible secret

Spoiler

He's a kind person deep down and cares for the downtrodden

that I originally played through the game as who I still love.

However, Cipher seems WAY more plot relevant than all the other classes so I'm not sure what to do...

I want to use my Old Vailian artist Cipher (my first and only character), but her stats are all sorts of jacked up from the changes I had to make after the constant balance changes. I'll have to replay the game first before having an import ready, but I'll likely use the same character concept with some adjustments.

 

[Shake Appeal]

I want to use my Old Vailian artist Cipher (my first and only character), but her stats are all sorts of jacked up from the changes I had to make after the constant balance changes. I'll have to replay the game first before having an import ready, but I'll likely use the same character concept with some adjustments.

If you have still have a pre-endgame save lying around, you could load it, respec the character, finish the game, and export that save.

My first playthrough was a Vailian duel-wield Rogue that I really loved, but I'll probably end up importing my current ranged Cipher once I've run through all the WM content.

 

[decoyplatypus]

Good point, in my previous post I was using it strictly to mean evolving characters. My main point is that I don't think that all or even most characters need to radically evolve in an RPG.

I agree with that.

On the romance issue generally, I'm ambivalent. I can't think of many CRPG companions I've wanted my PC to romance (the format of pre-written character and empty vessel with dialogue options doesn't lend itself to intimate connections), but I do think there's value in allowing the player to form unique relationships with party members. I'm okay with a system where the companions can come to occupy different relationship "slots" based on the PC's actions in the storyline. For example, if your dialogue choices throughout the game are mostly pro-Glanfathan, you might end up with Hiravias becoming your permanent "watch" partner with whom you get special dialogue scenes. And if you're consistently going against the interests of a certain character (say you are much kinder than the Devil of Caroc prefers), that character may start speaking out more and more over the course of the game and occupying a "counter-weight" or "rival" slot with unique opportunities depending on which character takes the role. I would prefer "romance" not be one of those roles, but if it's an option within a particular relationship, it might not be so bad.

 

[Voror]

I need to actually get around to doing a full playthrough of PoE. Started several times and enjoyed it, but my OCD about my characters being as strong as possible and thus worrying about whether I picked the proper race and such always got to me.

I think I may just start from scratch again. I know I'll start with a Cipher since I liked the idea behind the class. Need to figure out what race now haha. Chanter and Druid seemed quite cool too. Maybe I'll end up doing three and doing an import playthrough of them one by one.

 

[More_Badass]

Surprised to see that pledges make up more of the funding than investors. Usually it's the opposite for FIG

Oh, and less than 30k to go

 

[Immortal Technique]

Looks like this is a smashing success. Even the site change from Kickstarter didn't slow anybody down.

 

[Dineren]

I had no doubt it would eventually get funded, but I definitely thought being on fig would slow it down quite a bit and it would just crawl across the line near the end of the campaign. Glad to see so many people are still enthusiastic about PoE and Obsidian.

 

[HStallion]

I had no doubt it would eventually get funded, but I definitely thought being on fig would slow it down quite a bit and it would just crawl across the line near the end of the campaign. Glad to see so many people are still enthusiastic about PoE and Obsidian.

Even a flawed Obsidian game is still a special experience in many cases. They have their strengths and the CRPG plays to many of them and of course hits a lot of people in the nostalgia bone hard.

 

[The Wart]

Surprised to see that pledges make up more of the funding than investors. Usually it's the opposite for FIG

Oh, and less than 30k to go

The ratio of investment to pledges has been increasing steadily I believe, so I expect investment to be the majority in the end. My impression is that investment is less front-loaded than pledging.

 

[Rockin' Ranger]

Has there been anything yet about how using our old character will work? Will we be starting with them as strong as when the first game ended our will Eothas leaving us near death conveniently drain is of all our power?

 

[MisterShine]

... were what we had for the game and stretch goals focused more on increased dialogue and interaction between them rather than more companions? .

I'm not sure about only 5 classes, but if they wanted to, in general, have fewer companions but go much more in-depth with them I'm 100% into that. One of the things I liked about MotB

I started planning for The Ultimate a few days ago. How'd you do it? Paladin?

Yep, Paladin. Not even THAT difficult, honestly. I 'cheated' a bit though by quitting fights I thought I was going to lose and reloaded the level, but that saved me a lot of time from having to run a concurrent, Non-Ironman save file that most people do.

... but my OCD about my characters being as strong as possible and thus worrying about whether I picked the proper race and such always got to me.

You must let go of the powergamer munchkin inside of you, and embrace the roleplayer!

 

[decoyplatypus]

The ratio of investment to pledges has been increasing steadily I believe, so I expect investment to be the majority in the end. My impression is that investment is less front-loaded than pledging.

Which makes sense. Pledgers know they want the game and just need to make an internal calculation about reward tiers. Investors presumably adjust their commitments as they get new information about the number of pledgers and the median pledge (unless that's not how Fig works).

 

[Anno]

The first game funded the same amount in, I think, 27 hours. We will get this one done in 23 or less. I don't imagine it'll end up higher, but I'm glad to see there's still such a demand out there for more Pillars.

 

[MartyStu]

oops.

 

[MartyStu]

Pallegina's in game model looks so good.

I kind of hope they do what they did with Tyranny and use the in game models for conversations.

Even a flawed Obsidian game is still a special experience in many cases. They have their strengths and the CRPG plays to many of them and of course hits a lot of people in the nostalgia bone hard.

Which is why I continue to support most of Obsidian's endeavors. DSIII aside, even their bad games are worth playing.

 

[decoyplatypus]

Pallegina's in game model looks so good.

I kind of hope they do what they did with Tyranny and use the in game models for conversations.

I may be in the minority on this, but I don't think that worked all that well in Tyranny. The in-game models aren't bad, but they're still not expressive enough to beat out the beautiful static portraits, which have the advantage of being close-up on the characters' faces--a perspective that is invaluable for conversations and otherwise absent from isometric games.

EDIT: $8,000 to go.

 

[Anoregon]

Probably not gonna get funded

rip