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Pillars of Eternity: I updated the FUCK out of the OP, everyone! [Obsidian's New RPG]
TychoCelchuuu
PIGEONRegistered User regular
PIGEONRegistered User regular
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HKoDTzea79Y
Website | Official Wiki | Offical Forums | Dev Tracker | twitter | YouTube | Facebook | Josh Sawyer's Blog
Pillars of Eternity is a fantasy isometric pausable real time party based RPG being developed by Obsidian Software, makers of such fine games as the best Knights of the Old Republic game, the best recent Fallout game, the best Neverwinter Nights game, the best unreleased South Park game, and the best Fallout DLC. Among other things.
Pillars of Eternity is old school. Combat is tactical and pausing is encouraged (and probably required in tough fights). Use your party members effectively by synergizing spells and abilities and making other good decisions. Watch it all take place from a classic Baldur's Gate style isometric perspective. Avoid combat altogether by using "words" to "talk." Wander vast, beautiful areas and turn on hardcore mode where dying means permadying and you can get fucked up.
But above all, get ready to read. Voice acting is limited because this game is all about the rich, copious, reactive dialog, and you can't have enough of that if you need to pay Ian McKellen to read it all for you into a microphone.
Non-combat skills for each character are handled separately from combat skills, meaning you don't need to cripple a character in combat to make them effective outside combat, and vice versa. Josh Sawyer, the lead designer, is all about making choices interesting and meaningful and providing options rather than punishing players or letting them easily fuck themselves over.
Resting is in. Spell memorization is in. Crafting is in. Enchanting is in.
It will also have this cool thing where you'll reach parts in your adventure where you're presented with a sort of Twine-esque text-based adventure game, where you can make various choices (including some that rely on skill checks), read about the outcome, and so on. This lets them expand the game and add a lot of cool scenarios without bogging them down in a massive amount of work crafting a bunch of graphics and animations for all these things.
Welcome... to a place.
It doesn't have a name yet, sorry. Some of the places have names, at least. The technology level is at approximately where we were in the 16th century: guns exist, but they can be slow and cumbersome and if you miss the wizard, chances are you'll have a lightning bolt in your chest before you can reload.
Everyone in this world has a soul. In addition to liking soul food, this means everyone's constantly being reincarnated after death and so on. Gods screw with stuff, some people have better souls than others, some people manipulate souls with weird soul magic, and who knows what else is happening. People in tune with their souls can harness amazing powers so watch out for that.
There are six races you can play as in Pillars of Eternity.
- Aumaua are aquatic people. They've got webbed feet and probably give damp handshakes.
- Dwarves are short.
- Elves are cool. Josh Sawyer, lead designer, is an elf.
- Orlans are like if an Ework fucked a Hobbit.
- Okay I'm going to be honest with you, Godlike are the best race, objectively. I know that sounds super racist. I know I sound like a Nazi except replace white people with Godlike. But I'm serious. They have "God" in their name. There can be no argument about this. There is an objectively best race in this game. So anyways when this comes out I'll be rolling a master race character just so you all know.
- And finally who gives a shit about humans? I sure as fuck don't. A human is an inferior elf, basically by definition. Just measure the ears.
There are 11 classes to pick from in this game. Like holy shit that's a lot.
- Barbarians score low on standardized tests but high on drinking game scoreboards. They can sprint across the battlefield, deal AoE melee damage, and take a beating but keep on eating.
- Chanters are like magic cheerleaders. Chanters build songs up from a series of phrases and, when they chant their songs, magic shit happens, like buffs. Even better, they can whistle while they work, so to speak: unlike fancy pants magic users like priests and wizards, a chanter can be doing any old shit and also chanting.
- Ciphers have powers that let them directly influence the souls of others. In effect, instead of attacking an enemy's body, they can focus on attacking their enemy's soul. They have other soul-based powers that rely on targeting an enemy or an ally to cause all sorts of crazy results, like AoE attacks or buffs.
- Druids don't shower very much. They can turn into animals. If you're dating a druid and they turn into an animal in bed that's probably super awkward. Unless you're into that stuff. I'm not judging. I mean I guess it's pretty much the only chance you'll ever get to fuck a bear, right?
- Fighters know how to fight. Kind of a filler class if you ask me. Fighters are the kind of people who you didn't know super well in high school and you look them up on Facebook ten years later and apparently nothing has happened in their entire life since then except they married another one of those people from high school. So you probably at least want to invite one to your party so they can kill a spiderman for you. And in the game.
- Monks get stronger the more damage they take. Through sheer soulpower they take wounds and turn them into special abilities. So, yeah, they're totally into masochism.
- Paladins are fanatic devotees of a chosen cause. This single-minded focus gives them power, drive, and special abilities. They get auras, like in Diablo II!
- Priests serve one of the many gods and vary widely based on the god they worship. Priests of Magran carry around guns and were responsible for crafting the "Godhammer," basically a really huge bomb that blew up St. Waidwen. What was that about? We don't know yet! That's one of the mysteries to discover in this game.
- Rangers have high DPS and are great ranged fighters. They also have adorable animal companions. So I guess that's your other chance to fuck a bear.
- Rouges are makeups used to redden the cheeks so as to appear more youthful or as if you've been caught in a mild blizzard.
- Rogues are rogueish characters who can sneak away and reappear at a crucial moment to deal some serious damage to a single target. They're not all thieves and if you thought that you're racist in the bad way (not in the "Godlike are the best race" way, AKA the good way).
- Wizards are pretty dope. Magic is really cool! Wizards can cast a certain number of spells before they have to rest. Some spells a wizard can memorize, but beyond that the wizard needs a grimoire to cast a spell. Grimoires hold a limited number of spells and switching during combat is a little cumbersome.
It's you! The funding is coming from you! We Kickstarted this thing to the tune of almost four million dollars, making it the highest funded Kickstarter game ever for about 10 minutes until someone Kickstarted the next Torment game. Lame.
That's super convenient, I've got a list of stuff here:
- Game Basics
- Souls, Technology, and Adventuring Companies
- Non-combat Abilities
- The Power of MODES
- Q&A
- How Stuff is Made
- Non-Core Classes, Cooldowns, Attack Resolution, Damage vs. Armor and a Tileset!
- Orlans and Gods
- The Rules of (Melee) Engagement
- Monk!
- Paladins and Wild Orlans
- Crafting with Tim Cain
- Companions
- Stronghold!
- Ciphers
- What's in a Game
- Impressions at Rock Paper Shotgun
- GameBanshee Interview with Josh Sawyer
- PC World Josh Sawyer Interview
- Gamasutra Josh Sawyer Interview
- GameRanx interview with Chris Avellone
- Josh Sawyer blog post on a canceled game that sort of became this game
A rendition of the proposed "Squidtree" race by @BrocksMullet
And remember...
No sleep for the watcher...
and @surrealitycheck is daddy.
If you see @C2B in this thread, do not be alarmed. He is basically Obsidian incarnate.
TychoCelchuuu on
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Wheel of Time game? (I know nothing about the books). Fallout 4 set in the UK? Dungeon Siege 4?
We need @C2B here.
"We have years of struggle ahead, mostly within ourselves." - Made in USA
Edit:
Commented in the HTML code:
"We have years of struggle ahead, mostly within ourselves." - Made in USA
One more detail: the tweet that Obsidian used to announce this was hashtagged #RPG. So that tells us... pretty much nothing, considering the studio, but still, good to know.
"We have years of struggle ahead, mostly within ourselves." - Made in USA
My first thought was Wheel of Time, because I've heard rumors of that, and I belive the Aes Sedai (the female magic users of the setting) wear ouroboros-type rings as a symbol of thier status.
However, the one on thier website is not *the* Wheel of Time symbol (that's an ouroboros shaped into an infinity symbol, with a spoked wheel) and none of the Proper nouns mean anything to me, and I've read all the WoT books Robert Jordan wrote before he died.
Ouroboros is an insanely common symbol for fantasy. 4 being the 4th age barely makes any sense.
Agreed on both points. WoT is even dumber when you remember that Obsidian weren't developing it anyway. They didn't design it or anything, they just assisted them on the technical side. But seeing as we haven't heard a thing about that game for years, I'm guessing it's been cancelled anywya.
My guess is that it's probably Dungeon Siege 4, which I'd be fine with because I really enjoyed DS3. If not that then a new IP is my only other guess. Either way, it looks like Square Enix is the publisher.
Why do I have to sleep?
Anyway, it's most likely not Wheel of Time (It would be a big surprise if it was). Guesses are new publisher IP or Kickstarter. Hoping for the second. Hopefully it involves Tim Cain too.
Edit: Also its a 4 day countdown. The 4's not meant to be meaningful I think.
All right, people. It is not a gerbil. It is not a hamster. It is not a guinea pig. It is a death rabbit. Death. Rabbit. Say it with me, now.
Both write for Gamebanshee so maybe we'll hear more from that side.
Ah yes
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I'm going to be pessimistic and assume it's this until we get proof it's not.
"We have years of struggle ahead, mostly within ourselves." - Made in USA
Right?
Seems legit. I'm going with this.
If it were their Kickstarter game, surely they'd use the typical state based codenames? Where KOTOR2 was Delaware, AP was Georgia and so on. "Project X" on the other hand, is more of a Square Enix thing.
I'm not sure why. I think maybe because words like that try too hard to sound like Fantasy. Or something.
Shamefully stolen from Obsidian's forums:
Delaware - Knights of the Old Republic 2
Pennsylvania - Neverwinter Nights 2
New Jersey - Known as Seven Dwarves while in development, it was something Brian Mitsoda helped develop before it was cancelled.
Georgia - Alpha Protocol
Connecticut - Aliens: Crucible, the first Onyx Engine title in development at Obsidian, it was a RPG set in the Alien universe directed by JE Sawyer.
Massachusetts - Neverwinter Nights 2: Mask of the Betrayer
Maryland - Dungeon Siege 3
South Carolina - Neverwinter Nights 2: Storm of Zehir
New Hampshire - Fallout: New Vegas
Virginia - Nothing much is known about this title other than it was a small internal project which was meant to be released in 2011. Could have been the XBLA game which was put on hold. Uses Onyx engine?
New York - South Park: The Stick of Truth
North Carolina - Latest major project directed by JE Sawyer, rumored to be a next-generation RPG funded by Microsoft (?), who eventually withdrew their support from the game.
Rhode Island - ???
Vermont - Scifi RPG with a handful of designers/artists working under the direction of Jason Fader. Could have simply been a failed pitch. Developed in Unreal Engine 3.
As I said above, "Project X" is a Square Enix naming convention. See:
http://www.vg247.com/2011/04/05/rumour-square-enix-publishing-project-x-with-external-studio/
Then...why the secrecy? If it's so obviously Dungeon Siege 4, and they even recycled the project name, they have to have known people would put this together already. And why are Obsidian doing the teasing here, and not Square Enix, like they did with DS3? Furthermore, this is the description on their forum: "So secret not even its project codename is yet being revealed" which points that the codename will likely be changed at some point.
The first and third, I agree with
But 'the Night Market' speaks to me
Could be because it reminds me of the Echo Bazaar, though. Or the Black Emporium from Dragon Age 2
I've learned not to hope anything Obsidian makes (or Chris Avellone writes) turns out well, but I'll listen to whatever they have to say. If nothing else, I hope to god it's not another sequel to a previously established franchise
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What on earth are you talking about? I was just pointing out that Square Enix has a history of using "Project X" as a working title (Dungeon Siege 3 wasn't the first), not that it meant it had to be Dungeon Siege 4. And even if Square Enix announce it, that doesn't mean Obsidian can't help hype it up.
Clearly Valve contracted them so they could release 3 & 4 simultaneously as an apology for valve time
Also "What do these words mean" "Nothing"
*hint* *hint* We don't even know if the words are serious at this point.
I assume they mean something. That they are, in some way, related to the product to be announced. Otherwise, what's the point?
Although, if this is one giant misdirect leading up to the announcement of a G22 game, I guess it'd be appropriate.