Pillars of Eternity: Obsidian's Kickstarter RPG

http://www.polygon.com/2015/3/25/8284763/how-pillars-of-eternity-rewrites-the-rules-for-role-playing
http://kotaku.com/were-really-digging-pillars-of-eternity-1693310820

This looks like Neverwinter 3 and I am down

i'm psyched

One thing that's unique to this game is that rather than just striking up random conversations with an NPC, your character can go up to them and look at their soul, which tells you a short story about who they are and where they came from. I haven't done this with every single NPC — there are points where I just want to get on with the story — but the ones that I have read are lovely little bursts of story and flavor.

oh god read a fucken book instead

my kickstarter rpg pitch is "this contains 10% of the text of other rpgs but it's text a rational adult human being would give a shit about"

guy prob didn't actually need to get through the door in fallout

I almost got drawn into Bloodborne hype even though I didn't like demon or dark, so I'm really glad this is unlocking and saving me from that.

Glad this is finally coming out. Pre-ordered it off kickstarter so very long ago.

yeah, this looks really good. unlike jimd tho i've fallen down the bloodborne-hole so it'll probably be months before i get around to picking this up.

i look forward to playing 5 hours of this and then never going back to it

ETA 2 hours!!

so what char are ppl planning to roll up first?

this is looking really good
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2015-03-26-pillars-of-eternity-review

Made myself the most vanilla fighter possible to begin with. Got introduced to my first team mate...she's a vanilla fighter! Killed a wolf and a couple of dudes, then lunch break was over. Getting surprisingly low (sub-20) frame rates at 1080p on a machine which managed Arkham Origins at 720 just fine, so that's surprising. Have to see how it gets on when I step the resolution down.

My Black Isle instincts are kicking in and making me want to spec a character to maximize the amount of narrative or dialogue options I can get.

"At times it seems like the Dyrwood national pastime is reciting history to every passing stranger, and even when not, this is a very dry, humourless game for the most part. ... Quests are fairly stock, characters forgettable, and even the longest serving party members made little impact on me."

this is a positive review of this narrative-focused game

xp Never had any intention of not rolling a high INT/CHR character for my playthrough(s). (I want to be realistic though, it's a long game and I doubt I'll be running it twice, I miss my youth)

I did get 60 fps in 1080p on mine with a 2.5 yr old card.

this game has a lot of words man

most of them are pretty bad but something about the fixed camera and box-dragging party selection and paused order-giving is very soothing

like i foresee not enjoying this game so much as spending a few weekends in a pleasantly narcoticized state accumulating and fulfilling quest goals until the crushing weight of dumbass fantasy naming conventions drives the air from my lungs and i have to bail

Well I'm only managing 28-30fps at 720p but that's fine, it's playable, still looks lovely, and key thing is it's on a laptop so I got to play it on the train to work this morning.

Got stuck at a puzzle with some bells, think the answer is in a locked chest, wasted my few lockpicks and haven't found anywhere to buy new ones yet. But it's not like the game hasn't already given me a dozen other things to be getting on with in the meantime.

I've got one sidequest which I've almost finished but need to go and talk to some guy to finalise it, no idea where guy in question is (I only ever saw him hanging round outside someone else's house, presumably he's now in his own house but I can't find it). But I dunno, stuff like that just makes this feel more realistic in a way. It's a positive rather than a negative, though my feelings on that might change if I end up with similar situations blocking the main quest thread.

i foresee not enjoying this game so much as spending a few weekends in a pleasantly narcoticized state accumulating and fulfilling quest goals

i applaud yr honesty

Would you recommend this for someone who has never played baldurs gates or neverwinter nights, or should I just play the classics instead?

this is great but why not play baldur's gate which is super classic and much cheaper

really want to play this but I also barely made a dent in divinity original sin, which is pretty similar.. I even really liked it, just stopped playing.. assume I'd do the same with pillarz

Playing a coupla more hours of this with enough beer and deciding that, yeah, I'm okay with this being an acceptable narrative+gameplay delivery vehicle for my brain. The fact that they foreground the stat checks than allow you to change dialogue or actions is greatly appreciated.

There is a minor weird vibe I had that "wait, I've getting the same sensations I had playing Icewind Dale 12 years ago," but at this point, I put enough stock into this presentation that it feels like a far more credible and fun form of, say, visual novels.

Then again, I'm still in the beginning. Playing a female redhead elven ranger b/c you can get a sidekick wolf, which is the closest thing to a big dog who wants to come adventuring with you that any 2015-ish game gon' give us.

But you can get an actual big dog! I met him at the Gilded Vale inn and now he follows me everywhere.

Unlocked my stronghold last night and that (plus the dungeon below it) all seems like it's going to be really fun side-project stuff.

http://www.pcgamer.com/pillars-of-eternity-diary-playing-as-a-party-of-bears/

http://ec0c5a7f741a6f3bff65-dd07187202f57fa404a8f047da2bcff5.r85.cf1.rackcdn.com/images/j8KQ47sQtnoi.840x0.Vdef9Kkm.jpg

I got a K$ space piglet companion, but it just kinda follows me around and doesn't do much.

so this game is really good. great writing, engaging story, fun combat mechanics. very baldur's gate esque, but actually benefits imo from the new IP. i'm kinda bored of forgotten realms. this is nice + bleak.

I'm only 3 hours in, but I'm enjoying this so far as well. Mordy did you end up finishing?

Not finished yet- still playing

I'm still going too, though I hit a bit of an "oh wow there's still so much to do" bump at the end of act 2, which slowed me down for a while.

Environments are so beautifully drawn though, which is enough motivation to keep going. Might run out once I've seen all the maps and I'm just mopping up quests but that'll presumably be home stretch anyway.

just picked this up ... pretty dope so far

any expert advice for beginners?

I only got so far into this before getting distracted and going to Wasteland 2 instead. Will try again once I get my FO4 hours out of my system.

i was having fun until i got to the first main hub (i think), just after the tutorial bit. suddenly i had a bunch of quests that all seemed to revolve around talking, and after 3 hours of walking from place to place talking i just quit. i'm not suited for story driven RPGs because i just get bored

i got a little ways into act 2--made some stronghold upgrades, resolved the mad-king-of-gilded-vale quest, visited the big city--before getting sucked away by fallout (and by my o.g. baldur's gate party, who are deep in durlag's tower). the endless text is not always well-written as prose and the original infinity engine games (torment excepted) were terse and streamlined in comparison, but there are coherent themes (postwar trauma, history as memory, gotterdammerung) woven nicely through the characters+quests, and the environments are v lush+evocative even if what i've seen so far is generic european fantasy (don't always mind generic european fantasy). the best and most narcotic part of the game is the scrubbing back and forth across a big blank map screen, grinding and illuminating. this was the best part of baldur's gate too. (i never played bg2 because as i said i am in durlag's tower.)

i really like PoE's strange endurance/health/permadeath system, which cuts way down on the number of AH FUCK MINSC DIED style reloads (or for hardcore players: AH FUCK MINSC DIED style 10-minute round trips to temple plus 30 minutes of inventory management) without removing the dread from death. also really appreciate all the difficulty modes--the kind of optional cultist-flattering feature that gives kickstarter a good name--even if i gave up on the full-permadeath mode after sitting through the prologue three times.

only advice i have is to check the bestiary to read about monster resistances and be clever about yr damage types, also to make a real effort to interrupt enemy spellcasters.

if you get the xpac - play it before finishing the main story. the game doesn't allow you to continue on from the main story end -- which is stupidly terrible.

overall i liked the game. skipped through many walls of text. found the bazillion plaques for donors to be kind of dumb and distracting. and the battles were a bit too fast and a total cluster to justify the 800 different spell options you had. and the npc companions never reach the baldur's gate level of funny and memorable. liked the cypher tho.

i got killed by a bear

I just started playing this (actually the first game I've started in a long time). I'm enjoying this a lot so far, I forgot how much I enjoyed infinity engine games. I'm just enjoying walking around getting into random encounters.

restarted and marathoned this-- white march included-- in prep for the sequel, which i preordered but still have not played, because i have been playing baldur's gate. (idk when i'm going to get to it either, because i have also, in prep for finally finishing BG1, and in order to stave off buying a switch, dropped $50 on a i would say probably "G" original 2001 numbered copy of the baldur's gate 2 collector's edition, which yes does come with a cloth map, and also with a series of character trading cards, still untouched in sealed foil packaging, which i intend to open.) i don't know why i'm addicted to this genre. stuff like BG has at least the spirit of novelty but one thing PoE reveals is that crowdsourcing game design to nostalgic nerds creates a whole new form of weird pervasive ennui distinct from the one that AAA games have.

but i had plenty of fun. the 3.0 revision seemed to make attributes and effects a little less psychotically marginal. "fantasy colonial america" is a good idea for a setting. managed to not see the twist coming and enjoyed it, found it thematically resonant, etc., tho the last five minutes of a story are a pretty stupid jj abramsy place to reveal a villain's motivation. (in general the setting is compelling but the story is an almost total wash, which could be symptomatic of something, tho i'm not sure what, maybe just that this is a stupid fucking medium, idk.) enjoyed doing the faction quests in the first city and wasn't disappointed by the granularity of the ending-slide combination i got for them. really enjoyed the consistent pessimism of the companion quests, partic sagani's. enjoyed much of the attacks-vs-resistances combat, tho am unsure the game ever justified making rock-paper-scissors quite that complicated. really enjoyed the dungeons in the expansion and the one near the beginning w the mad king. really enjoyed kana. did not enjoy the loading times (absolutely obscene); the endless paths of od nua which i for some reason did all of anyway (each stupid floor is just one more reason the cities are so lifeless); the prose written for the backer npcs (game-ruining if not ignored); or tbh the prose written for the rest of the game (p much glop). loved the bestiary.

highly recommended to fans of the genre.