Author Topic: Pillars of Eternity  (Read 22071 times)

Clockwork

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Re: Pillars of Eternity
« Reply #15 on: August 03, 2017, 10:31:42 AM »
Thanks my dude!




Re-wrote it, first draft was boring, this one hopefully has a hook. BTW most of this is represented in-game through conversation options and the like.


EDIT: Wait wtf, how has this thread got 2.5k views nearly? You got any stats on that?
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Jubal

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Re: Pillars of Eternity
« Reply #16 on: August 03, 2017, 11:47:12 AM »
I've just trawled the google analytics, it's not coming up with anything I wouldn't expect for this thread and I don't even think the thread's even been google-registered, all the pages from which people navigated here are what you'd expect (via posting, via recent unread posts, via the forum structure). I think older threads like this tend to rack up the views via things like search engine crawlers over the years; the OP was in 2013 so this has had plenty of time to do so.
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Clockwork

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Re: Pillars of Eternity
« Reply #17 on: August 03, 2017, 02:43:00 PM »
Thank you!


I guess that makes sense... Just wondering what it was that makes this more clickable than say, Cyberpunk 2077 or Dragon Age.
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Jubal

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Re: Pillars of Eternity
« Reply #18 on: August 03, 2017, 08:36:58 PM »
Yeah, I have very little idea, and I don't know much about the trawler/human ratios either for these hits. Part of the trouble is that Google Analytics only gives you a subsample of the data, so their numbers are always orders of magnitude below those picked up by the board software.
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Clockwork

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Re: Pillars of Eternity
« Reply #19 on: August 26, 2017, 07:02:52 PM »
Deima looked down the length of his Valian-made arquebus one eye closed, mouth slightly open with a silent prayer of concentration on his lips. As he neared the end of his phrase a blue flame flickered from his eyes. At a precise moment he squeezed the trigger and exhaled, the ball roaring from the end of the barrel glowing a deep azure, leaving a faint trail in it's wake.


This was the signal Kallack had been waiting for and he leapt from the shadows into the path of the now oncoming wichts and Yura lit up the right flank with a ray of the sun's own fire.
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Clockwork

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Re: Pillars of Eternity
« Reply #20 on: August 30, 2017, 05:29:13 PM »
Once again Kallack stood defiant before a God. Within him was the power to sway the fates and, with presence of mind, thought back on his life. He knows he lives with surety and righteousness, his memories are no burden - even the pain serves it's purpose; testing his mettle and hardening his spirit. But his memories are not those at stake here, even in their immense power and longevity the Gods may overstep their reach and lose perspective. Just as Ondra had, Abydon asked Kallack on the importance of memories - painful memories, ones which cause fear, jealousy, shame, regret; are we not better off without them?
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Clockwork

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Re: Pillars of Eternity
« Reply #21 on: November 16, 2017, 05:39:52 PM »
HYACHA! A White March Review!





This product is interesting to review. On the one hand, it's a masterfully crafted standalone piece of isometric RPG but on the other, it's not supposed to be standalone.


Pillars of Eternity is the definitive return to isometric RPGs moreso than the other kickstarted products from ex-black isle employees because it's a new IP but still very familiar feeling to 'old' infinity engine gamers with it's high-fantasy setting intertwined by low-fantasy character. An example of the low fantasy is that everything is timed, there are hours and minutes in the day, travelling takes time even though very few quests actually use this aspect of the world. Looking at it there is the infrastructure of urgency and what looks to be intentional mechanical and narrative design choices to portray that the player is on a schedule. This is unfortunate because The White March Part 1 is wholly narrative adjacent and as such going out and doing it feels like it should be done once the main villain of the base game is dealt with but due to how the multiple endings work that's not possible.


Cohesive storytelling aside, the expansion is truly awesome. The locations are few but each is incredibly detailed with a frozen tundra to explore in place of the forests, villages and city of the main game. Interstingly for an expansion, there are a lot of new item models in the form of unique 'soulbound' weapons which, if you've been paying attention to the base game, provide something of a clash of gameplay and lore. What does binding your soul to equipment mean for your soul? Given that the premise of the base game is that you're trying to stop your soul fragmenting, is binding it to an object really a good idea? Mechanically; yes because those items are the most powerful in the game and I've no doubt that it won't have any effect on the story but it feels a little off.


On lore and setting however, White March generally does an amazing job of fleshing out heretofore lesser known parts of Eora such as Raedceras, the Mountain Dwarves and the Mages who crafted the Wizard spells in-game. This is a brilliant addition and for me at least is the reason to head up to Stalwart and The White March. For everything else though - see the base game. It's a lot more of the same and that's great but in the back of my mind I'm sort of looking for a gimmick in every expansion. What I mean by that I'll demonstrate with another game by the fabulous J.E. Sawyer; Fallout: New Vegas. The DLCs for that game all had a gimmick, Dead Money had the red haze poisoning you if you stepped into certain areas, Honest Hearts was a survival game with hefty carry limits and so many things to bring back, Old World Blues had those incredible robot personalities to find and collect and... well I haven't played the last one but it probably does.


All in all I think that it's a very solid addition to the base game with superweapons to use against the hardest fights in the game for the powergamers, an abundance of world lore for us loremasters and an engaging and tonally in-keeping story for everyone.
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Jubal

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Re: Pillars of Eternity
« Reply #22 on: November 16, 2017, 10:37:24 PM »
...I should actually look at this game sometime, shouldn't I?
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Clockwork

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Re: Pillars of Eternity
« Reply #23 on: November 16, 2017, 10:39:57 PM »
I think you'd really get a kick out of the lore and setting, yeah :)


In really broad strokes, it's a little bit native american mixed with classical fantasy mixed with progressive-ism thinking and parallels to modern social issues. It wears all that on it's sleeve but underneath there is so much more and so much nuance that I think it's a really cool piece of art, work of literature and entertaining game all in one.


The backgrounds and setting are cool to give just a sample:



The Glanfathan people are kind of tribal, look after the land and kill anyone who hecks with it. They're kind of fighting everyone because everyone wants their land, they're slowly losing. They're also kind of trading with everyone because they need it.


Vailians are basically renaissance Italians, Old Valia is a former empire now kingdom I think and Vailian Republics are states that have broken away from the empire.


Aedyr is an empire which still has slavery, everyone hates them and the main game is set is one of their colonies that broke off called the Dyrwood.


Deadfire Archipelago is sort of the Caribbean, has a load of pirates but also trading and merchants from Vailia.


Living Lands is, afaik, jurassic park without the park and more monsters.


It's so rich. You have to like reading though, there is a *lot* of reading. Well, for a guy like me it's a lot ;)
« Last Edit: November 17, 2017, 05:30:18 AM by Clockwork »
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Phoenixguard09

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Re: Pillars of Eternity
« Reply #24 on: January 18, 2020, 05:43:25 AM »
I've been thinking about grabbing this, but then I saw the sequel, Deadfire, has come out on PC now, with a console release to come soon. I might just grab the second, as I understand it is possible to play and understand without playing through the first.
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Jubal

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Re: Pillars of Eternity
« Reply #25 on: December 04, 2020, 01:51:45 PM »
Having now played and enjoyed this, but been un-recommended Deadfire, does anyone know if a third game is planned at all?
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Clockwork

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Re: Pillars of Eternity
« Reply #26 on: December 04, 2020, 02:28:16 PM »
First one is free on Epic Games Store next week (10-17) along with Tyranny.


No, definitely not planned. All the developers were burned out after finishing deadfire to lukewarm player reception and lower sales than D:OS2 and Kingmaker. https://jesawyer.tumblr.com/post/188915786456/will-there-be-a-pillars-3


The second is possible to play without playing the first and I'd actually probably recommend doing so as imo the second game follows on badly from the first one but is sort of better mechanically.


If you like pirates, get 2 if you like knights get 1 I guess is the most accurate advice I can come up with! :P


EDIT: Also Jub, sorry I didn't mean to give quite such a negative spin to deadfire! :P It is mostly decent and the combat and levelling up is better if slightly more confusing due to the amount of potential, albeit transparent because you can see all the pre-requisites now. (omg portugal that last sentence, what even is it??? I think you'll get the gist though so I'm leaving it so you can see how badly I failed english right now.) It's just the setting is so stark in contrast to PoE 1 that continuing a character over is really strange feeling. And like I said before, the factions are all mostly arseholes. Pirates seem reasonable, despite the, y'know, piracy.

If you're wanting more PoE Jub, I would entirely without reservation recommend White March 1 and 2, imo the best bits of PoE 1.
« Last Edit: December 04, 2020, 03:55:47 PM by Clockwork »
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Jubal

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Re: Pillars of Eternity
« Reply #27 on: December 04, 2020, 06:15:42 PM »
I think I can only deal with doing about one game per quarter of a year at the moment, and the current one is Skyrim, but I could see myself trying White March or Deadfire sometime in 2021.
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Clockwork

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Re: Pillars of Eternity
« Reply #28 on: December 05, 2020, 01:38:01 PM »
And I totally forgot about Avowed, coming out whenever, it's a first person RPG set in the Pillars world!


https://www.pcgamer.com/uk/avowed-release-date-gameplay-trailer-pillars-of-eternity/
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Jubal

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Re: Pillars of Eternity
« Reply #29 on: December 05, 2020, 02:35:35 PM »
That does sound a bit like "Pillars, minus a lot of what I like about Pillars"... I think one thing I'm very much learning as I delve more into RPGs is that I'm more a tactical, party-driven RPGs person by instinct, though I get the impression given the relative popularity of different RPGs that I might have a minority view there.
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