Obsidian vs Chris Avellone & Pillars of Eternity's Lackluster Story
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- Опубліковано 22 тра 2018
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Hope you guys enjoyed the video, certainly one of my more nuanced videos. A death of a game video should be out this weekend (the latest Monday, Happy Memorial Day :) ). It's on a special NCSOFT MMO :)
What's it about?
Blade & Soul?
Aion? KKona
Which NCSoft MMO!? There were SO MANY they unceremoniously cancelled!
My guess is on City of Heroes.
Poe's story is bizzare in that your character essentially has superhero powers and is essentially by the end a champion of the gods who saves the world, yet you feel like unimportant errand boy throughout, it isnt a "you are a pawn in a much larger game" story like the witcher games, and it isnt "you're a spectre and our only hope" like the mass effect series, it tries to do both and it ends up being a narrative mess as a result.
What I found incredibly weird is that the main plot is like 4 quests, thats it.
That's basically what the Fallout games are like.
In Fallout 1, the main quests are 1. Find the water chip - you can actually skip this part. 2. Defeat the Master. 3. Destroy the Super Mutants. 2 and 3 are interchangeable.
Fallout 2. 1. Find the GECK - you can skip this part. 2. Get fuel and the FOB for the oil tanker. 3. Destroy the Enclave base.
Fallout: New Vegas. 1. Find the guy who shot you - you can skip this part. 2. Pick a faction. 3. Do 3 or 4 mandatory quests for your faction. Except Yes Man, where you can skip everything and go straight to the final battle. 4. Win the Battle of New Vegas.
Most of the game is side quests and leveling up so you can survive the main quests.
KingOfMadCows Poe 2's main story is 5 very brief quests. Felt like a roller coaster that only got to climb the hill and never fall down. I think that even with Yes Man's path you do more than 5 quests, including the few that lead you to Benny, Yes Man, Etc.. to finish the game. I've never done a speed run of fallout New Vegas save make a b line from Goodsprings to New Vegas but I know that felt longer than Poe 2s main story.
That's how some RPGs are. The main storyline is just one of the many lines in front of you. You're saying as if that's a bad thing.
Nerosekrieg Except you don't need to do the Benny quests. You can skip them completely. You can also skip the Yes Man quests through dialogue.
I was reaaaaally hoping Ukaizo would be a super big island on it's own, perhaps with a remnant faction still living there to sort stuff out with. After 1 short boss fight, turning a nob on a machine and smashing down some pathetic pirates which I grossly outlevelled at that point I was a little bit dissapointed...
I've often seen this as a cycle of game companies over the years. Bioware is a good example. When People felt betrayed by Mass Effect 3 and later games, I tried to remind them, it's not the same company anymore, most of the talent had moved on. Interplay changed when the core Fallout team left and formed Troika.
When I talked with Chris for my podcast a few months ago, he brushed on this topic, but not too deep (I was focusing on celebrating his career for the most part). His main issue seemed to be a matter of strong direction from on top, setting a tone not just creatively, but also a project lead who will keep everyone focused. In hindsight, I can see what he was referring to.
It is sad to see, but the best that can be hoped for right now is a new company/team forming from the ashes of the old Obsidian gang.
but difference is that EA already bought out Bioware far before ME2 came out, the games were already losing their "magic" as more games came out, DA2 was terrible, great for combat, but everything else was garbage, DA:I had lots of glaring issues again, great combat but sub-par everything else. Bioware lost to much of their great talent made their games suffer, with original story writer finally left bioware pretty much the company has stamp of death, i seriously doubt Anthem will be good.
personally ME 1 was only good one, ME2 stripped far to much RPG elements same for ME3 that stripped elements even more and EA had nerve to rip out major character for story for day one DLC total slap to face. I understand people are pissed with that ending i don't blame them.
It was surreal to see Chris Avellone get the Brent Knowles treatment. EAware's done everything short of hire assassins to remove Knowles' name from Dragon Age.
Yeah one could definitely tell if they played any of obsidian's older games. When I got PoE at launch, I booted up the game and played for two hours before turning it off and uninstalling because I couldn't stop yawning. Everything about the game was unfortunately dull to me and I wasn't going to power through the game. Fast forward two years and tyranny was out. I did finish Tyranny but that was positively the last obsidian game I will ever buy because while the gameplay of Tyranny was fun since it let me play as mortal kombat's raiden, I found myself pressing escape all the time and skipping all the dialog because the entire story line was about as engaging as slapping someone with a wet loaf of bread.
I didn't even know PoE 2 came out.
@kyotheman69 Absolutely agree with you. I tend to use ME3 as the example since so many people screamed bloody murder over it and how Bioware had died. For me, ME 1 & Dragon Age Origins were the last two great Bioware games.
My personal revelation of them changing from the Baldur's Gate company was actually Jade Empire. I thought it was great and a neat take on action RPG gameplay, but it was so much shorter than I expected. When the credits rolled I was confused expecting more.
Dylan No problem. Didn't want to put it in the initial comment since I didn't want to hijack this great show. roadmappodcast.com/podcast/26-chris-avellone-interview/
PoE 1 story alone is not bad. Buuuuuut; It really lacks enough space to fully explore main motives or be refreshing expirience like Baldurs Gate 1. Story is based on two Pillars (bad pun sorry): Soulless Children motive and Soulmanipulation. If you get into the world... it is fun. It was hard to me but after few hours I finally felt how I should. Still story is kinda badly put together. Stronghold is almost completly ignored in main quest and it is really weak. As ruler of the castle and villages... you don't really take care of any of it... and story ignores this subplot making you random adventurer instead of leader.
One of the key problem with Pillars is that they trapped themselves into a narrative shortcoming by having everything related to a single resource: Souls.
Since everything in the setting is bound to souls a lot of story points end up coming back to this one abstract concept and fails to give an impression of an interesting and diverse world with intricate inner-workings. Fallout and KotOR2 feel like fulfilled works because there are different layers to the world, old world tech and the force aren't the only things that matter.
If mystic soul JuJu doesn't appeal to you, then that lack of appeal will spread into everything the game is has to offer. It's unlikely that souls would appeal to anyone because it's shown but not well explained and left intentionally vague to no benefit. It's that old trope of "it's magic, I don't have to explain s'wit." Swap out magic for souls and there's your problem. They should have seen this from day 1.
The dramas behind the development team don't explain the pitfalls in pillar's story and I find this video lacking in insight because of that. Writers can't do much if their premise is lacking and sadly the world of pillars is doomed from the start.
Still fun tho.
I have to agree with this. I have to add I find that The world doesn't make sense on a lot of levels. I actually stated the moment they introduced the wheel of souls, the world can have no entropy, whether they understand their world or not will entirely depend on if they tried to introduce this concept. Sure enough they did a few sentences latter. I was then okay lets see if they understand that entropy would not be a natural part of the world and something has to be causing it. Nope. I'd argue that most of the writing is actively hamstrung by the writers being unable to understand or properly flesh out how their world works.
in accounting we often offset wages by lowering a persons salary by giving money to relatives. it reduces taxes and liability.
it isnt always a nefarious thing.
Not once did I think back to the story after playing through.
You say something very true, the famous studios of yesterday are not the same today, they are empty of their creative substance, there is literally nothing much more to expect from them.
And that is why Obsidian was horribly ran from day 1. Remember how Kotor 2 launch was pushed forward to December?
a lot of people fail to realize that studios are great because of the KEY PEOPLE in the studios. Once those key people leave (producers, lead devs) then the quality will always go down and that is how Bioware and Bungie release games that are "good" but when you compare them to their old games they seem like garbage. People should buy games based on the devs that make them and not the studio name
Good video, thanks for content like that. One note: can you please put the links to the forum posts you've used snapshots from?
Is it really the writer's fault for the main quest being lacking when they do such a great job with lore and side quests ? It sounds more like lead design problems in general to which writers have to adapt to. It looks very deliberate to have an extremly short and thin storyline and 95% of the game being side content. I really feel it was poorly handled in PoE2 but I'm not sure it's the writers fault at all.
Sombrego there are rumors out there which say that game development in Obsidian's games are chaotic. This could very well be (one of) the major reason why their recent games were kinda weak but who knows? :D
Gameplay design and game writing need to pull in the same direction or you get ludonarrative dissonance. You can't say "this is very important" and expect players to care, when you let the player wander off doing whatever, unless giving a very good reason why the character is not paying attention. Good games will use mystery and character (not player) confusion of how to progress and lulls in the main plot to allow you to do side quests.
Lets hope that obsidian doesn't go down biowares route.
I think eventually they all do, but here's hoping.
Ergo well, maybe they will see bioware being on life support, and ea watering at the mouth to unplug it as a warning to not follow a fate akin to bioware.
More often than not it out of their control, Bioware didn't follow that path because they felt like it suddenly, the core team literally left, This Bioware you see now is only a name with a bunch of new people afaik. Its not necessary for it to happen but once this petty "bickering", allegations, and major shifts in the power and talent structure of the company starts, I think its a clear sign of the near future, unfortunately.
Bioware didn't have a choice EA bought them out.
They already did. The waifu baiting, the "sea of content", the leftist bias, the season pass. The only difference between them is Bioware do everything by the number while Obs try to be different just because (read: counter common sense. Like a society where woman go out hunting instead of the man. Despite babies still come from them. Every countries and society have differences... except gender equality and pushing women onto the frontline are universal... People drop one or two words from their made-up language while speaking english without rhythm nor reason...)
I am enjoying Pillars 2, but it’s straight up one of the weakest stories Obsidian has written.
Well its also most open world in my opinion.
I couldn't disagree more about POE1s main plot - it was perfect for me. Interesting but not so pressing that it made sidequesting seem stupid.
POE2 was pretty silly.
As someone who played PoE 1 and enjoyed it, I must say: I could barely recall anything from that game storywise other than the premise and the ending, some of the companions and that's it. The combat and the rpg elements are pretty good especially from Obs, as they always had issues with the combat in their games but it's not that revolutionary or ingenious therefor it simply did not made me interested in the next title, that's why I did not bought the second.
And apparently I did not lost that much.
Thanks for these informations. I really like Chris' works and also what Obsidian do in general, I hope they won't lost what make them so special :/
I just found this channel...boy I was missing something good. (Sub and bell)
It's a trade off, many of those games had excellent main plots but the rest of the story and characters were middling at best. Pretty much every Bioware RPG has a weak at best main plot (with several being outright bad) because they put them emphasis on personal stakes, Darth Malak may of been entirely forgettable, but the interactions with the party after the game's twist is revealed is the part that made it great. KotR 2 had one great character in Kreia but the rest of the party were either incredibly boring and forgettable or returning characters from the first game.
just fyi Knights of the Old Republic 2 was Obsidian the first one was Bioware.
1. You don't really explain what you think was wrong with story, just assume it's bad and roll with it.
2. Chris Avellone reiterated several times that he likes Obsidian's games and devs, and overall his issue is with the management, not the development side of things. It affected the quality of a workplace environment rather than results of the work directly. The cuts to Durance / Grieving Mother had to be done. HOW they were done/communicated was the issue. Though obviously the work environment affects performance, how that translates to quality of writing is a difficult and complex matter.
3. Nobody truly "writes" games as big as obsidian's current and previous titles. It's a team effort. There's no "auteur". Most of the drama about PoE can be applied to previous titles, so it does not explain the supposed "drop" of quality. And it's still a one man's perspective, Avellone's no god.
4. I'ts difficult to separate worldbuilding and lore from the plot, especially in PoE, when the plot is so tied to the very workings of the world. And building the whole world from ground up in such detail, it was impressive. The world is a character.
5. Writing is a subjective thing, just because you didn't like it doesn't mean that it's bad, just because you liked something doesn't mean that the next thing by similar team will appeal to your tastes again and if it doesn't it doesn't mean that something must have gone terribly wrong.
6. Not sure what "side quests better than main quests" you have in mind. They didn't really dig that deep, aside from companion stories. Save a caravan, kill a tyrant lord, free a spirit, find a daughter... My opinion is the exact opposite, side stuff was much less interesting than the main story.
6. IMHO PoE's narrative is leagues above most games' writing. Though definitely not perfect. In fact I liked it better than KOTOR2, even though that was also one of the better narratives in the world of games. Not using pre-existing IP is part of the reason.
Bartosz Szafarz PREACH
Ouf where to start...
1. Deadfire's plot is barebones. If you play the main plot and only the main plot quests, you're looking at perhaps...8-9 hours, and that is stretching it alot. Mostly empty time spent exploring, travelling, leveling, inventory management...Also the whole Eothas plot boils down to listening to an NPC talk to you. The bigger interaction are with the factions who unfortunately get shafted. The game could have been more about control of the archipelago and less about sniffing his butt. Unengaging, passive main quest = boring game. Go read a book, the writing is better at least.
2. No complaints, i agree.
3. This is SORT OF true. Making a whole game is a team effort, but we're talking a bout story and plot. RPGs specifically can and are written by a handful of people. You can go buy a DnD adventure book, 100 pages of pure rpg adventure and plot, and they're mostly written by one or two people. Writing the story in a video game or for a DnD adventure is very very similar. Auteurism can and is a thing. Planescape Torment was Avellone's brain child, that's a fact.
4. The world may be a character, but it was a boring one. It was that NPC that i skip the dialogue on. PoE suffers from overwriting, overexplaining, overdescribing, over...everything. It fails on some very very basic writing rules. It needed more time for editing and rewriting. As it is, the first PoE suffers from boring fantasy tropes. Which is a shame, because under all of it is a really really cool premise and story. It's a diamond in the rough. I suspect that this is why you like it, you bore the bad writing parts and are only remembering that cool story under it. But you need to step away and see the cracks and know that they are bad.
5. Critique and objective truths are necessary. You can't interact and improve the world and our way of expressing art and constructing beautiful things if you use the argument that something is "subjective". Recognize that when someone is criticizing this game, it isn't because of "taste". It's because it has some universally bad aspects or flaws. The pacing is disjointed and jarring, the main quest is very dry and seems to go on at random, the urgency of the situation is paradoxical to the gameplay and how the player is roaming the world. etc, etc.
6. Arkemyr's mansion, the faction sidequests, the Crookspur situation, the Fampyr fog island...the ghost ship, the imp "god", you know, funny or interesting stories and missions.... The only really cool mission in the main plot is that lava island one, and it ends with more passive, inconsequential events. It's just me with my hands off the keyboard being TOLD what is going to happen and to shut up and enjoy the ride.
Ultimately, the game is not poorly written, but it's certainly not great writing or great plot delivery. It has pacing issues, motivation issues, frankensteining, and commits a big cardinal sin of removing the interactivity from the main plot. Except the factions. That was pretty cool, more of that next time...
I believe he was speaking more for Pillars of Eternity, the first game, not Deadfire.
Deadfire actually suffers more in my eyes, the main plot is even more lackluster, and I dislike most companion quests. Sidequests are better in PoE2 than 1, and the gameplay is definitely better too (except for the lack of difficulty which means that PoE1 still is a lot more fun to play around with).
I end up agreeing with Bartosz here. I still like Deadfire, and I still liked PoE1 a lot. I recognize a lot of the things going on in Obsidian and with Chris. I've also played many of Chris' most notorious games where he participated as narrative lead. While I do trust him, I still feel like I'd rather see how this pans out before saying anything more. I make sure, always, to divide between work and author.
I actually liked the way the lore was implemented into the plot of PoE, but I feel like the presentation was the lacking part. Being introduced to the world of Eora wasn't too well done in PoE1, and what PoE2 did better was introducing you to the conflicts at hand. And the conflicts are, sure, Eothas, but also the faction war going on and how you learn little by little about them and end up deciding whether one of them is worthy of ruling the Deadfire Archipelago or they can all go to hell. I wish PoE had something like this, a better Act 1, and a better Act 3 while we're at it.
Ouf where to start...
I probably shouldn't start at all, since this would take too much time that I don't have.
But... something is better than nothing and I can't resist saying maybe just saying a few things.
Yes I was speaking exclusively about Pillars of Eternity which I finished like a week ago, snatched in Humble Bundle a few months back. I thought it was obvious since the video above deals with PoE1. I haven't touched Dreadfire yet and I won't for some time, since I'm not a day-1 player and I have a huge library of games to play so I'm in no rush.
A game is lots of moving parts and people, with time and financial pressure and various elements developed in parallel. That necessitates teamwork. This is not a pen-and-paper rpg. The closest comparison you can make I think would be to a TV series. Assets have to be created, dialogue trees implemented, choices mapped, corresponding levels designed, quests programmed, voiceovers scheduled... And all (as much as possible) within budget and deadlines. Yes, Planescape Torment is something of an exception (though not entirely), and in the interview on RPGCodex Chris Avellone himself rues that very fact, that he was directly involved in some form on all levels of writing in this game. He offers quite a few insights on the writing pipeline in big rpgs in interviews as well as the famous anti-obsidian thread, so go read up. It's hella complex. The closest you can get to "auteur" game IMHO is if you make it a very linear and tight experience that's cheap on assets, like "To The Moon" or sth. Anyway, a list of people that most probably had input on various levels of writing in PoE is:
Joshua Eric Sawyer, Eric Fenstermaker
, Adam Brennecke
, Carrie Patel, Olivia Veras
, Chris Avellone
, Liam Esler
, Jeff Husges
, Robert Land
, Matt MacLean
, Jorge Salgado
, Joshua Eric Sawyer
, George ZietsI
That's 13 people. Yes, we might say that Eric Fenstermaker
, Carrie Patel, Olivia Veras were the ones responsible for the overall feel of the game (and that's already 3 people!) but all the other team members most probably had a very tangible impact.
I've never said that one should not engage in critique and it's just taste. Hell, my post is kinda a (bare-bones) critique. Subjectivity is a much more nuanced thing, it means that your enjoyment is relative - to your knowledge, experience, mood, opinions, expectations and various other factors, none of which are universal. If your critique is to be meaningful and objective, you have to spell out those factors first and build hypothetical statements. Only that way you'll get objectivity.
I put 80 hours into POE finishing main game + expansions. I cant recall a single character name or place name.
Great game but setting and story bland as hell.
Grieving Mother was pretty good, but Durance was easily the highlight of the game, no surprise that Chris wrote them now that I think of it
Aloth and Sagani were great companions as well tbh
Party members hate you when performing evil actions :( , how can baldurs gate do it right and modern games cant. Bring back Durance!
Alright, first of all, lemme warn you, this comments gunna have some poe2 SPOILERS.
Don't say I didn't warn you.
It's strange to me that you say that poe2 had actually good sidequest storylines or companion storylines since I felt that those were utterly lacking in depth and never really went anywhere. They were, to me, maybe as bad, maybe even worse, than the main storyline, although this is compounded by the fact that I expected poe game to have really strong companion stories, like the first game had. In it pretty much every companion story had depth, they had character, you learned more about your companions and their motivations through them. You learned WHY they wanted to do these things. In poe2 theres nothing like this. For example Eders quest. He tells you to look an old fling of his and that is it. Theres no real explanation why she meant so much to him, unlike in original where he told exactly why he wanted to look for his brother or information about him. Then, to compound this issue, after finding the kid of his fling, suddenly, eder no longer gives a single shit about finding information about his old fling. Instead he wants to save this kid from a cult, cult which receives almost no background, no depth, and is just hamfisted version of jonestown (although jonestown is actually interesting case) with 1:1 recreation of their mass suicide on top of that. And once you save the kid thats it. Nothing is explained, the game really gives no motivation on why eder would do any of this nor does it give player a single motivation to care at all about his old fling, of the kid, if the kid survives. It's badly written, it lacks depth, motivation.
Xoti's storyline might be worse. She's got this big thing about collecting souls, being gaen's missionary and all that. It seems like the quest will lead you to some sort of actual conclusion for all of this. To my utter, complete, dissapointment, it does not. No. Theres no conclusion. Theres no real depth to her story either. She just collects souls, sees few nightmares, touches an adra pillar and thats it. She at least gives some background on why shes obsessed with darkness and death but that feels like stuff that would fill in blanks with a story, like extra stuffing, but since theres no real story here, it just feels kinda, well, its there so its nice. Even after meeting eothas, of whom gaun is a version of, the whole thing is completely handwaived. She has simply no story to herself. The quest has a start but it has no middle nor end. It just stops at a point where it feels the questline is just getting started. It feels like listening to black sabbath's paranoid where the song just gets cut off after first 30 seconds without warning.
After this one I simply stopped giving a single shit about companion quests. I did the companion quest for the blue orlanion pirate but his character had absolutely no personality beyond being snarky pirate, gave absolutely no reason why he gives a fuck about his old pirate friend, why should the player care about finding him and the ending for that one seemed like this big emotional moment but due to completel lack of any reason to give a shit it was just clicking through dialogue TO BE FUCKING DONE WITH IT!
And this issue extends to the factions. I liked the pirates, or at least the new principi, cause they got me freeing slaves but beyond that there was nothing to them. We got no reason WHY the two factions were butting heads, we got no background on either of the leaders, we got nothing. It was 'I want you to overthrow this dude' and thats it. Thats your whole motivation for the storyline. Oh, and the questline is woefully short too. And goes nowhere. Theres no proper conclusion, no closure here either.
This is the whole game: All quests start, some start strong, but they have this complete lack of depth, motivation, and basically have no structure and go nowhere. Then they just end. The whole thing is woefully badly written, which fucking sucks because I was so utterly excited for this game and the first island really felt like it was leading me on some sort of grand adventure (even though even that point the main quest was least interesting thing. A sign of things to come, if I woulda been clever enough to see it beforehand and not have my hopes up). It was grand adventure, grand adventure to depths of dissapointment. The writing is just so bad here. It's like the people who wrote these stories have no grasp on how actual plot works, about pacing, about anything, let alone how to write an compelling character, not just cardboard cutouts with no personality, no motivation, no emotions. They should read a book or something.
It is sad to say but at this point I hold no hopes for obsidian to make an actually good rpg anymore. PoE was their last one and even that falls short on so many levels. The only modern company which has shown any capability to write an actually good rpg has been harebrained schemes with Shadowrun: Hong Kong (the two before that had some issues but are still million miles ahead of competition). Now that thing, that thing fucking rocked. It felt like finally there is company who can rival the one who made baldur's gate games, who made fucking planescape: torment. I hope that after battletech they will go back to writing rpg's, shadowrun or otherwise because they are truly capable of delivering on that front.
Nice Essay, I haven't played PoE2 but I thought 1 was bland and dull. Your synopsis is exactly the sort of feedback I was looking for!
the companion interactions so bad i literaly wanted to play the game without companions. only the first companion is decent others complete garbage.the pacing is nightmare in this game its like a chore play this 2-3 hour and you won't see a single interesting quest and after that even if you see a good quest you already will begin yawning so it doesn't matter after that point.
i liked the being a ship captain and ship combat and thats it.
i bought this game because ppl told me obsidian makes amazing rpg games with good story i never played BG or Planescape torment but mass effect 1 and dragon age origins were 10x fun than poe2:deadfire for me.
This is sad but i'll probably don't buy another obsidian game in the future.
Gonna have to disagree with ya - I found those three quests you mentioned to be pretty fun, and quite engaging with the characters. I loved the work they were able to do with the dialogue to add insinuations about the characters motivations; instead of being very hand-holdy, and telling me things incredibly bluntly, I felt I had room to make guesses and find things out as they unfolded, meaning I had a much deeper connection to the characters by the time the quests reached their ending! Definitely not knocking your opinion (a game can't please everyone, after all)
@@Bluepenguin28 I played once with companions and all my other playthroughs have been solo
holy shit did you get a different guy to do your patreon commercial at the end. The sudden change of tone spooked me.
Okay so I'm not crazy. Loved Fallout:NV so much but I have tried to get into PoE multiple times and bounced off it hard every time.
i dont understand why modern video game companies undervalue exceptional writing. bioware failed with the departure of drew karpyshyn, and the incredible stable of writers that obsidian had were forced out due to companies wanting to pay less for writing ( or as they would say, to let someone else have a chance to tell a story ) yes that's right, cut employee cost so feargus can have his wife on the payroll. I have said for years and years that chris avellone is that best in the industry at what he does and will buy anything he's attached to.
also im kinda scared about what happens to obsidian when josh sawyer is inevitably pushed out as well. * sigh*
POE is Path Of Exile right?
You can tell, because Path of Exile has a better story.
I thought it was Plains of Eidolon!
warframe beats the shit out of all of those games. including destiny.
Was debating on getting PoE2, Dos2, or pathfinder. I believe in Chris and his comments. Guess I’m not getting any obsidian titles
Dude can you please put your sources in the description. Some weird people like me like to read the post for themselves
This link has nearly all of the info in it. www.reddit.com/r/Games/comments/8h57zx/chris_avellone_criticizes_obsidians_upper/
Very interesting!
I hope Chris Avellone is able to get the recognition and pay he deserves at Techland, since he's working on Dying Light 2.
I actually enjoyed Pillars2's story. I think the first game was a bit aimless, but the 2nd was way more focused and seemed like it mattered more from the start. Whether or not that was because of the it building off the previous story or not is up for debate. Pillars1 didn't come off like an epic adventure at all. Just being a dude, who survived a soul storm, doing dude stuff lol.
I also think the second is markedly better, because at least it has a simple concept to explain the story "God is rampaging, you need to deal with him". I just dislike them carrying over the old protagonist, and then arbitrarily making us level 1 again...how does that make any sense story wise?
nerdSlayer I mean it's the same with games like mass effect. Why would universal super soldier Sheppard need to start over? Mass 2 kind of made sense since he "died", but 3 made no sense.
Mass 2 you didn't start over though, your previous level helped things. 3 I can't honestly remember.
It sort of makes sense for the protagonist, you died and had to be "reassembled" piece by piece, some things got lost in the process. You can even find justifications for why returning companions are also starting at lower levels, Eder for example probably spent years not doing much fighting at all, etc. But of course you starting at level 1 dosn't really have anything to do with the story. Personally it doesn't bother me much, plus I think the game would suffer a lot if Obsidian decided to go with a new character as a protagonist.
nerdSlayer Nope, very little carried over from Mass Effect 1 to 2. If you were rich in ME 1, some of your money gets carried over. I believe the max was around 100,000 credits. You also get some more research resources. That's it. You lose all your levels. Your companions lose all their levels.
PoE 2 did pretty much the same thing with some special items being carried over.
Witcher had the same thing. Every game, you're knocked down back to level 1 and you lose most of your items and money.
Baldur's Gate was one of the few games where your level actually carried over and that's because the max experience in BG1 was only 89,000, which was enough to reach between level 7 to 8 depending on the class. And the cap was raised to 160,000 in the expansion, which meant 2 or 3 more levels. So the max level you can carry over into BG2 was only around 10. And the experience cap in BG2 was 3 million, allowing you to reach around level 20, only 14 for the Druid.
So if PoE had followed the same formula, either they would had to increase the level cap in PoE 2 to 32 or lower the level cap in PoE 1 to 8, with each expansion adding 1 or 2 more levels.
He went from a face to a heel.
Chris worked himself into a shoot.
Whatever you might say about PoE... Though it is a great game with a even more fantastic expansion pack.
Tyranny was simply amazing. One of the best RPGs ever made with one of the greatest worlds in gaming. Obsidian did it completely by themselves and without the help of Chris Avelone. I hope they keep creating more games like it.
They already have done it again with Pillars of Eternity 2 Deadfire.
One of my favorites.
Obsidian might be getting a lot of slack right now , which they should but they are the best choice and consequence game creators out there. Also not many devs make games for a mature audience.
You do realize who was a big proponent of that game right?
nerdSlayer Who? Certainly not Chris Avellone.
Who?
Chris Avellone was the reason I played Obsidian games, now that he is gone I will probably not be playing their games
You still gonna get Outer Worlds?
Well Chris didn't largely contribute to Fallout NV main story, and PoE isn't as bad as people are trying to make it out to be
@@wrathofthewitchqueen
The main quest of new vegas excellent, but i believe it is less to new vegas's DLC storytelling, which was directed by Chris.
@@wrathofthewitchqueen my favorite experience in the entirety of vegas was playing OWB and Dead money, which was written by....
I stuggled to get along with the first game, and now i'm struggling with the second.
Chris is working with Techland for Dying Light 2 HELL YEAH
Losing original founder is a rite of passage for the American company, Mc Donald, KFC and more come to mind, without the founders biting the dust, those companies won't become what they are today.
Fergus Urgheart was the main founder of Obsidian and the founder of Black Isle studios. He's just as much of the heart of the company as Chris, if not more.
but when the foudner leaves in a gaming company the games get worse.
Well I guess the last nail in the coffin has been put on the possibility of having Chris write the next Fallout's story and quests...
Pillar of Eternity II has underperformed. Meanwhile MCA is now at Techland working on Dying Light 2 as the Lead Narrative and Story Setting designer. MCA is doing well after leaving Obsidian and working as a freelancer working on multiple of games.
And people want Obsidian to make another Fallout game, yeah right they seemed to forget that after FNV several devs left the company wen the game hit the market
They wouldn't even have most of the same devs. They lost every single writer who worked on the project.
I really like your videos and plan to check most of them out when able. I was a big fan of many of these franchises and companies you've covered. It's a shame that all the business politics and shady practices killed so many great developers and MMOs. You should do a video on Gazillion and what happened with Marvel Heroes and Super Hero Squad.
Matches my thoughts to a good degree. The game was mostly 'meh' when compared to something that did come out of that studio. Perhaps there's some truth to the allegations of mis-management going on there after all.
its time for that Arcanum remake to appear soon and show the world of crpg's, we need this quality.
Can you do Block N Load?
Great video, nice to see someone give a mention to a completely forgotten masterpiece, Neverwinter Nights 2.
the final boss fight was just with a door keeper to get to the talking boss. that was stupid
They already never had QA, now they're losing their writers too? That's what kept me playing. And googling bugfixes. And downloading fanpatches. And accept weird glitches. I always loved Obsidian for their ideas, certainly not for their gameplay.
All they lost was Chris and no one else. They still managed to make Tyranny without him.
tyranny was pretty incredible but far from the standard of older obsidian games
afew people that worked on new vegas left as well.
That's a good point, we see the company name and assign it legendary status, when really it's because of a few key people working together that makes certain games the best. But over the years things change and people leave, but the name never changes.
Remember when EA wasn't the Anti-Christ of gaming, the people changed, the name didn't. Andromeda too was made by like 99% different people while the Mass Effect and Dragon Age Bioware, the one we know were off developing Anthem. And they get the blame for this. Same with Bethesda, all downhill for TES after Morrowind and all to shit for Fallout after Fallout 3.
But hey, at least we got some great RPGs along the way, New Vegas, etc, no one can ever take those away from us.
I love both Pillars of Eternity games.
So Obsidian was formed from the ruins of Intermplay, as far as I know. And now Obsidian itself is ruined, so all we could hope for is Chris Avellone would gather a new team. Dafuq is going on with industry!? Oh, I know - qucks and corporations.
Well, I always thought Obsidian is one of the best gaming companies out there, it saddens me to heard what happens to Chris. Mismanagement is a big problem for Obsidian, they broke once, they almost broke second time, if weren’t for their quality games. I hope they can corrects it before they broke the third times.
Yeah I’ve always enjoyed the sidequest more than anything in POE , sure the main quest does bring some fun and moves the main storyline but the side quest are just more fun in general especially the late game ones
I really like the story of POE although I admit I don't play these kinds of games that often.
What did you like about it?
The idea of a secret evil occult group working in the shadows and witch hunts against good guy wizards and an emerald dragon.
I think it is much needed that someone like you talks about Torment: Tides of Numenera, how colossal was its potential and promise and how hard it failed on almost all fronts.
Pillars of eternity... A tale of Schloops and schlombos.
An epic of binks and bwombolos
Oh hey! Long time sub and first time commentator here, whilst I dont have have further education in writing I am a fan of well written games and I know of the the many issues that PoE1 had. I dont think any video covered the reason why the plot suffered, if you ever wanted to think about doing a video in detail over the plot I am more than happy to tell you more in a super comment or e-mail as the issues with the plot are.... well.... as eye rolling at modern bioware can be they had more covering the plot on a technical level than PoE1 done.
PoE1 is fantastically flawed and only a few character seem to fit the world they were buolding
That sounds interesting you can email me.
juicy story!
He was "de-ownered"? What the hell does that mean?? If you mug someone does that mean you have de-ownered them of their wallet?
Literally an official process to remove your ownership
@@nerdSlayerstudioss Seems like if you own something it shouldnt be possible for someone else to just up and take it away from you, legally... I'd be furious.
Can’t agree more, wasn’t fully in for POE 1 and yet POE2 suffers the same fate, if not worse. The main campaign was short and had no pull for me. Story was half baked at best. THey might as well focused on all the faction fighting in the Deadfire instead of this whole “Eothas stoke mah soul!” bit.
That and the difficulty of the game is like a high school student beating on a toddler, I literally drank no pots nor used any consumables on hard. Just let the AI do all the work for me. No need for strategy , just went in guns blazing and went ham...and don’t get me started on ship combat either. Such a half assed scenario I felt they just threw the n with no regard. No point to the ship combat at all or the moral associated with your crew. 99% rush in board ships, win. Ez as the rest of this half thought out game.
Lastly I feel Obsidian has bloated beyond itself. It’s doing shady things the triple As are doing like cutting corners, rushing development, and just accepting “good enough to make us lots of cash from fans”.
The design of the game vs it's agency is one the biggest balancing acts.
Did we play the same game? I thought that the first POE's main quest was excellent (it had some pacing issues but overall it was really great). It explored well themes of faith, religion fanaticism and existentialism in a way that I've never seen in a game before.
In the end I think it's all very subjective, for example I didn't find the main quest of Fallout NV to be all that great, I think the way it was structured was more interesting than the story itself.
With the GDPR in effect several games have shut down, such as Loadout and Monday Night Combat.
I saw the carryover of the last story protagonist as both nostalgia, and a cash grab to get people to buy the first PoE game.
If the allegations concerning Feargus´s wife are true this is some major fuckup within the company and needs to be addressed more meticulously.
That is some shady and morally bankrupt shit right there.
Chris has had an amazing career though
I'm pretty sure George Ziets story for POE1 was picked for the game. Chris Avellone said as much in his posts.
Why have you unlisted this video? Is it because of the accusations against Chris?
If you look into them the way I have done in my "An in-depth exoneration of Chris Avellone" video, you'll realize they're very exaggerated and the worst parts of them are entirely disproven.
Obsidian doesn't care. They now have Tim Cain and Leonard, wait and see what game they come up next.
Next video Death of a Game : Bless Online. 28th-30th May RIP ;)
The same happened with Tyranny, which imo is a way better game than Pillars. Tyranny just kinda ended without any real resolution.
agreed, not to mention it was extremely limiting in choice, you were forced to suck up to nerrat, ashe or the rebels and go against everyone else (or just kill everyone) rather than be able to act as a neutral arbiter to the conflict serving tunon, which is your actual job in the game
SerNoddicusTheGallant It was such a shame because the worldbuilding in that game was off the charts. I love the concept they presented in Tyranny, it's such a shame they didn't utilise it to its fullest potential. New Vegas imo still is their magnum opus with Tyranny a close second for me.
I understand Paradox was supposed to make a related grand strategy game set in the same world, so maybe they went for an extra mile with the world building because of that.
Not dissing Avelon but I feel like the guy is too smart for his own good. His ideas are amazing at a core, but the writing gets very complicated at times and hard to follow.
Also having family on a payroll is fuckedup I wonder if it's even legal.
>I wonder if it's even legal.
It's legal as long as all shareholders are informed beforehand and do not oppose it. This is also how yuppies are generated because not all business are large enough for their kids to all have 401k accounts waiting for them.
As far as I know, it's usually legal. One way shareholders of corporations decrease taxation is by splitting their income among family members to avoid higher tax brackets.
I hate business politics. Especially if the story about Feargus' wife being on the payroll while not working for the company, and him trying to get his kids on the payroll.
Do death of a game Brink.
Pillars of Eternity has a sequel? Well some shits need a second flush.
Neverwinter Nights 2, Kotor 2, and Fallout 3 2
All these criticisms can be applied to Fallout 2 and Neverwinter Nights 2. Oh and Dungeon Siege 3, if you even remember that game. And the side quests in New Vegas were more interesting than the main quest.
You can't compare Obsidian to Bioware and Bungie since Obsidian has never had financial success. Yes, their writing was great but that clearly wasn't enough to help them pay the bills. Don't forget that Obsidian was on the verge of bankruptcy when they started the Project Eternity Kickstarter campaign.
KingOfMadCows jesus...Dungeon Siege... I played 1 and 2 ...there was a third one ? Wow,I feel so fucking old
NWN was redeemed with later expansion. DS3 was made to be an AWSHUM AKSHUN RPGS by a team who has never made them.
Main quest in NV is interesting in its branching and reactivity. It boils down to a political struggle more or less, where the main players dont show you their "human side". But they give you a lot of side quest utilising a lot of the world building, forcing you to meet more interesting character... to compensate.
They did have financial success in the form of South Park and NWN2 lol.
Actually, Dungeon Siege 3 had a rather good main story. I think it deserves much more love than it got :/
Now if only the gameplay was any good. The biggest issue with Dungeon Seige 3 was its departure from the first two's party system, at least that's what made me not want to go back to it.
Nass Lass PoE 2 does what New Vegas did. It's about a political struggle between several factions for control of the Deadfire Islands.
And the two most successful games you mentioned weren't successful because of Obsidian's writing. NWN 2 had a generic story and Obsidian didn't write South Park.
Chris is T H I C C now I wonder if it's due to the stress surrounding all this.
Before I start watching this, I hope you read his very recent posts on rpgcodex before making this video. It was a glorious and legendary thread on all the shenanigans surrounding his departure from obsidian. I can link it if anyone's interested.
Lol you did you madman.
Do you mind linking it anyway? I'd be really interested in reading a more in depth summary by Chris.
Jimbob anything for you jimbob. www.rpgcodex.net/forums/index.php?threads/rpg-codex-interview-chris-avellone-on-pillars-cut-content-game-development-hierarchies-and-more.121588/
It's 218 pages so I recommend going to his profile and through his posts in the thread. Enjoy MCA btfo-ing infinitron and putting Blaine on ignore.
Thanks man appreciate it
Make a Death of a Game episode for DC Universe Online.
If the discord rewards only worked properly DansGame
What's wrong with them?
nerdSlayer I saw a couple people in discord have the same issue I have. I pledged enough to get the patron rewards, but after linking Discord to Patreon it's saying it was successful without actually giving the reward.
Send me a message on Discord
NWN2 main story was good? Maybe Mask of the Betrayer's was. But the OC and SOZ were both lackluster at best. NWN2's OC was lore-breaking, tedious, and plodding. Two of those three could also have been leveled at POE's main story. Which was an amnesiac story to the hilt.
Mask of the Betrayor would be what I would say was quality work. OC suffers from pacing issues
Just so. And SoZ was an interesting attempt at IWD for the Aurora Engine. But honestly, it was too round peg in square hole for me to enjoy.
Inb4 Pathfinder Kingmaker ends up being a better CRPG...
Why was Divinity OS 2 so amazing? Chris Avellone was involved. Anything he touches is gold.
Obsidian needs to apologize to Aveldad ASAP and bring him back on board.
I knew something fel missing from pillars, nothing from the first game drew me in the plot was so boring and just not interesting, it didn't help that the combat was lacklustre either. In the end I didn't even want to play a cracked version.
While I am currently enjoying the second game, the main story still doesn't seem that interesting. It is really the companions, side quests and world that drew me in this time, the full voice acting also helps. It's is very similar to fall out 4 in that way, which is such a mediocre game in comparison, it is a shame that I can now actually do that.
It so sad cause I loved games like new vegas.
I am confused fired the CEO you are the owner. Especially if he is stealing from you.
Chris Avellone was a minority owner while Fergus the CEO was a majority owner.
Chris Avellone is a legend, hopefully his freedom leads to better projects.
Avellone had nothing to do with the main narrative of the first game.
Who cares about quality? At least Ferguson's family will be on a payroll, that will make me sleep at night lol
I really don't understand why they decided to go open world with PoE 2. The whole ship captain side of things is barebones and disappointing. The first one worked out very well with how you unlocked new zones with quests leading into one another and it felt relevant. In the second one there's a god stomping on cities and you'll be speaking to a main quest NPC one second going on about how there's no time the situation is urgent then go pick off five bounties and solve a dispute between merchants. In the first game there was a progression.
In this one the looming threat is constant and you're told time is of the essence at every stage. It just feels strange.
Oh no Obssidian is turning to the bullshit-side of the force.
One thing about Obsidian I'll never like, and this is just my opinion, is their gameplay. When they're not recycling assets/mechanics from previous entries of a series (NWN 2, Fallout NV, KotOR 2), their other games just play poorly IMO (Alpha Protocol, Tyranny, Dungeon Siege 3). I just don't care for the combat in PoE 1 in comparison to something like Divinity Original Sin and the weak main story doesn't help either. It seems like when it comes to story, characters, or lore, they absolutely go all in, but half-ass everything else and end up with a barely functioning, unfinished, shallow game. I really wish they can strike a thin line between gameplay and story with their next game.
I actually disliked the story and thought the mechanic of being able to see into people's souls was really weak . . . thank god the game play is off the chain good or else the game would be a dud.
I hate the fact that I spent money on Pillars of Eternity 1. It opened with promise, but it wasn't more than a hour in and nothing was there. It was just fucking boring, and slow, and boring. I got a keep, but I couldn't tell you why I had a keep besides I beat a dungeon. There was just no soul to the game, and I don't see most CRPG games combat being engaging enough to be worth it on it's own.
Wait, what? ? ? Neverwinter nights 2 is considered a good game now?
it's underated. sure act 1 of the oc is badly paced but after that it has it's moments.
I bought it when it came out and I could never get it to play well. Had a 6800gt which could run anything in the mid 2000’s like glass and it struggled with that game.
Like other person said, it had it’s moments. Didn’t play Mask of The Betrayer, but heard nothing but good things about it.
Idk, I quite liked Pillars of Eternity's story
So basically - cause cutthroat capitalism. Seems to be way the way of the world in this day and age, sadly.
God dammit my little heart can't stand another great beloved developer go full EA on our asses, I've already lost Ubisoft, Konami, Activision, Bethesda, etc. This industry is poison
Pillars Of Eternity is a great game with a nice narrative, with an even better expansion. Let me guess... I have no taste?
That's your opinion. As is it's bad, is mine.
@@nerdSlayerstudioss Be honest, the narrative isn't anything stellar, but its passable for sure. The lore of PoE is pretty great to get immersed into. Def not on the Baldurs Gate/Planescape level (it beats Icewind Dale in story for sure though) but it's still a great title
6:26 He destroys your keep that you build throughout PoE1 and kills the people that lived there serving you. He also takes a part of your soul. Yet you ask why would you care? With an attitude like that you won't care for any story. Your video lacks any constructive criticism about what you don't like about the story except "it's not good" and "Chris didn't work on it"'.
I hope Obsidian doesn't go the same way as Bioware. Throwing some of your best writers under the bus is something I would not have expected from them