Pillars of Eternity - Interview with Josh Sawyer

Myrthos

Myrthos

Cave Canem
Administrator
Supporter
Joined
August 30, 2006
Messages
11,223
Ragequit talks to Josh Sawyer about Pillars of Eternity and other Obsidian games.

RQ: Now that Pillars has been out for a respectable amount of time, do you have any "regrets" about it, design or content-wise? Is there anything you now wish you could have added/removed or changed in it before its release?

JS: The stronghold never really got the content it needed to make it feel worthwhile or important. During development we realized that if we had someone focusing on stronghold content, it would jeopardize other quests that we felt were more valuable. That's why the stronghold wound up being system-heavy and content-light. It's something we're trying to address with our 3.0 patch, which will be available when The White March, Part II, goes live.

Not all of the companions were tightly connected to the storyline. The companion I wrote, Pallegina, is one of the most disconnected. I think their connection to the central plot could have been stronger and there could have been better reactivity among them to both your choices and each other's' actions.

In the early game, it was very difficult to communicate all of the ideas that form the hook for your character's motivation. I think trying to communicate more cleanly or focusing more on the difficult concepts (in particular, the negative aspects of being a Watcher) would have drawn people in more easily.
Click to expand...
More information.
 
Joined
Aug 30, 2006
Messages
11,223
Bobby Null and I have also talked to Feargus about the possibility of making a separate game in the Pillars of Eternity setting focused on turn-based combat.
Click to expand...

YES PLEASE!!!! and just make it POE2

I think a lot of us here would be interested in exploring other tabletop settings in a computer game format. A lot of people here either worked on or fondly remember Vampire: Bloodlines and would be interested in a World of Darkness game.
Click to expand...

Do it Feargus! Go see your pals at Paradox and ask them.
 
Joined
Oct 13, 2007
Messages
7,313
azarhal said:
YES PLEASE!!!! and just make it POE2



Do it Feargus! Go see your pals at Paradox and ask them.
Click to expand...

Makes me wonder if after seeing Divinity Original Sin they thought "Well maybe a turn based game can get funding?"

I have a gut feel they did real time with pause because it would sell more and be more true to the black isle games but would have preferred turn based.
 
Joined
Feb 24, 2010
Messages
875
Saxon1974 said:
Makes me wonder if after seeing Divinity Original Sin they thought "Well maybe a turn based game can get funding?"

I have a gut feel they did real time with pause because it would sell more and be more true to the black isle games but would have preferred turn based.
Click to expand...

PoE with DOS combat system would be great. But for them to change the combat to turnbased with PoE2 seems a unlikely.
 
Joined
Jun 4, 2008
Messages
1,000
Location
The Great White North
I don't have an issue with Pallegina being disconnected with the main storyline. Her independent motivations provides the player with a connection to the larger outside world, so that is good from a lore perspective.
 
Joined
Mar 22, 2012
Messages
5,529
Location
Seattle
Lemonhead said:
PoE with DOS combat system would be great. But for them to change the combat to turnbased with PoE2 seems a unlikely.
Click to expand...

It's not a very popular idea on the official POE forums, so yes unlikely.
 
Joined
Oct 13, 2007
Messages
7,313
Lemonhead said:
PoE with DOS combat system would be great. But for them to change the combat to turnbased with PoE2 seems a unlikely.
Click to expand...

There plenty of TB games out there Lemon. Leave something for those of us who enjoy RTwP will ya? :)
 
Joined
Jan 10, 2008
Messages
4,721
It's almost as if some people don't even care about it's Infinity Engine roots... ;)
 
Joined
Nov 1, 2014
Messages
4,778
I wonder when will news about the Pathfinder RPG will out.
There was talking about a Pathfinder RPG several months ago, but no information follows so far.
 
Joined
Apr 21, 2007
Messages
67
Obs has never been know for deep turn based mechanics, and I think they never will be. A game has combat centric as PoE would definitely have profited from it though.
 
I can live without TB combat, but I'd really appreciate a real-time system that didn't feel like a job once you have more than 3-4 party members.
 
swapoer said:
I wonder when will news about the Pathfinder RPG will out.
There was talking about a Pathfinder RPG several months ago, but no information follows so far.
Click to expand...

It was just talks, the only game Obsidian is doing for Paizo is a web based adventure card game right now. It's not done yet and they said any possible cRPG would be after it is released.
 
Joined
Oct 13, 2007
Messages
7,313
swapoer said:
I wonder when will news about the Pathfinder RPG will out.
There was talking about a Pathfinder RPG several months ago, but no information follows so far.
Click to expand...

I thought this was going to be a MMOG.

--

RTwP is good, but PoE didn't implement it very good. Which, in fact, turned out to be no big deal. In spite of its insane frantic combat which wasn't intuitive, I kept playing it anyway.
 
Joined
Oct 19, 2006
Messages
5,213
Location
The Uncanny Valley
Joined
Oct 13, 2007
Messages
7,313
Lemonhead said:
PoE with DOS combat system would be great. But for them to change the combat to turnbased with PoE2 seems a unlikely.
Click to expand...

I'd prefer they stuck with RTwP anyways. Out of all the major RPGs released recently, PoE is the only one that uses that system. There are plenty of other games to choose from if someone wants turn-based combat.
 
Joined
Oct 21, 2006
Messages
39,331
Location
Florida, US
JDR13 said:
I'd prefer they stuck with RTwP anyways. Out of all the major RPGs released recently, PoE is the only one that uses that system. There are plenty of other games to choose from if someone wants turn-based combat.
Click to expand...

I guess you never tried Serpents in the Staglnads… Whoops, my mistake, it wasn't a major release ;)
 
Joined
Nov 1, 2014
Messages
4,778
JDR13 said:
SitS did come to mind while I was writing that to be honest, but I think that game flew under the radar compared to PoE, W2, D:OS, etc.
Click to expand...

Depending on how one defines "major" (and RTwP), there was also Kyn (2015), Sword Coast Legends, and Dragon Age: Inquisition last year. Next year there will be Masquerada: Songs and Shadows, Insomnia, and (maybe) After Reset.

While I know fans of RTwP-all five of you :p -will probably say there's been "a lot" more tactical turn-based RPGs recently, if you eliminate SRPGs and TBS and consider only party based CRPGs with TB combat , there really haven't been that many more. And T:ToN is the only "major" one I can think of coming out next year.

Lucky Day said:
RTwP is good, but PoE didn't implement it very good. Which, in fact, turned out to be no big deal. In spite of its insane frantic combat which wasn't intuitive, I kept playing it anyway.
Click to expand...

What RPGs would you say implemented RTwP well? And that's not a rhetorical question, I'm curious if haven't played the ones you'd consider to have good combat.
 
Last edited:
Joined
Apr 9, 2013
Messages
2,343
Location
PA
Yes it did, which was a huge shame really, it has a wonderful atmosphere.
 
Joined
Nov 1, 2014
Messages
4,778
daveyd said:
Dragon Age: Inquisition
Click to expand...

Was not RtwP...

It could be argued on a pedantic level that it was, but I honestly didn't notice anyone use the pause feature during combat, nor even manage their team members. The mechanic which allowed 'proper' RtwP was notoriously broken on the PC and only by playing it on the hardest setting possible were people even tempted to try and play it with any semblance of a RtwP game. DA:I might have been a sematically RtwP game but it's practically a real time game.
 
Joined
Nov 1, 2014
Messages
4,778
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom