Kingmaker Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous announced

Pathfinder: Kingmaker

azarhal

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PCGamer article with some info.

Two new classes added:
- Witch
- Oracle
- more to be announced later

New race and archetypes too, but none specified in the article (although, the teaser image might be showing an Hellknight).

Mythic path (homebrew, totally different from the pnp):
- Lich: big spells and army of undead minions, some companions won't like you
- Trickster: mischief and turn critical failures into critical success
- Angel: celestial allies and divine bolt of judgement (also wings going by teaser image)

Chirs Avellon is confirmed to be back.

Also, if you sign up for the mailing list on the official website, you get a free artbook for Kingmaker.
 
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No word on timers removal?
Hopefully they'll say it tomorrow so I don't have to wait for mods before playing the game. :)
 
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Yay, finally!!! Super excited :D

Can someone please post this as a newsbit @Myrthos; @Silver; @HiddenX;
 
No word on timers removal?
Hopefully they'll say it tomorrow so I don't have to wait for mods before playing the game. :)

and I'm here wondering how they will do side quests outside of chapter 3 or support evil alignments without changing major story beats…

edit: Just saw a Reddit post from a Paizo official, Owlcat did made changes to the plot to allow for evil PCs. Also, the mythic isn't a direct port from the pnp, that explain the weird names.
 
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More info:

Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous

* The sequel is officially Announced. It is Wrath of the Righteous.
* Given Oleg's discussion of Kickstarter at Big Deal, it is likely that there will be another Kickstarter. It took half a year to go from absolute nothing to a vertical slice in Kingmaker's dev cycle. And another half a year to go from there to Kickstarter readiness. And then around half a year to get from there to Alpha 1. and 10 months in alpha to get to Beta. and 2 months to go from Beta to Full game. It seems likely, given that timeline, that we will get a Kickstarter soon; though no official word has been stated on this subject.
* Owlcat is now an Independent Studio, but received a $1 Mil investment from My.com to make the game.
* The official Website allows you to Sign up for a Mailing List and Get a Free digital Copy of the Kingmaker Artbook



So what do we know about Pathfinder: Wrath of The Righteous, the Computer Game?

The Overall Game:

* Wrath will be based off the same First Edition rules as Kingmaker, This will include Mythic Rules, though they seem to have been reworked a bit.
* The game will be on an Updated version of the Unity Engine, and Owlcat has cleared up a lot of technical debt, so it should be easier to program, with less bugs. It is my understanding that this new ease of programming should help carry over to the modding scene.
* No release Date has been Disclosed, but it seems likely that it's not coming out until 2020, at least.

The Source Material:

Wrath of the Righteous is an Adventure Path where the central Premise is that a Demon Lord is slowly invading the World of Golarion (the same world as Kingmaker) and is trying to make Golarion part of their Realm in the Abyss. Several Crusades have been launched to stop this, they all failed. Now, It's your turn, and if you don't succeed this time? The world is doomed. To Succeed, you need to lead a Crusade, murder a Demon Lord, and Close the Portal to the Abyss. Something happens early on, that gives you "Mythic Power" a Power way beyond that of your standard adventurer that lets you "Break the rules" of normal Pathfinder in specific fun ways. Of course, you aren't the only one with Mythic Power. Your Enemies have it too.

The Hook:

There are a couple of Possible Hooks for Wrath. The First and most obvious is Mythic Power. Mythic Power is a system with very loud Proponents and detractors in Tabletop, but the main gripe with it is that it's hard for a GM to balance properly, and it's really hard to run on tabletop. Neither should be an issue for a Computer RPG where the program manages your problems.

The second Possible Hook is Mass Combat. Mass Combat Appears in a total of 3 APs. It was Introduced in Kingmaker, It shows up in Wrath, and it shows up in Ironfang Invasion. Given that Mass Combat was one of the Goals that Owlcat Wanted to reach with Kingmaker? I'd lay good money down that we'll be seeing Mass Combat in Wrath.

Finally, Since the underlying engine is the same (if updated), it seems likely that we'll be seeing more of the Kingdom Building system. In Wrath you need to lead a Crusade. It probably wouldn't take all that much effort to adapt the kingdom management system to a "Crusade Management System."

As yet only Mythic Power has been confirmed. It seems to have been Adapted by Owlcat similarly to the Skill System in Kingmaker.

* "The Mythic] system will let you pick from several different Mythics, including a mischievous trickster, an immortal Lich, a celestial angel, and others."
* When Questioned devs said that they had reworked the Mythic system so that it was more powerful. Both why and how are unknown at this time.


The Mechanics:

The Game should play very similarly to Kingmaker, and will likely be Real Time With Pause unless something major happened that convinced the Owlcats that they should change the entire underlying system for their extremely well-selling game based on some vocal detractors.

* We're getting the Kingmaker classes, plus Witch and Oracle. "There will be new ones beyond those that appeared in Kingmaker, and there’s also going to be a new race and new archetypes to play with."
*There is a Mongrelman on the Key Art. Mongrelmen are a Friendly monster race in Wrath, so this may be a case like Goblins in Kingmaker, where you can have a Mongrelman companion but cannot be a mongrelman.


The Characters:

* Seelah, the Iconic Paladin, is a Companion as per the key Art revealed in the reveal campaign, and confirmed by Devs. She will be "The only Iconic in the party."
* There is a White Haired Gnome on the Box Art. She may or may not be a companion.
*The angel man on the revealed art is The Player Character.
* There is What looks like a Bleachling Gnome Hellknight on the Revealed art. He is a Companion. His name has been (jokingly) revealed as "Stabby McStabface". This is likely an alias.
* The Succubus Arueshalae is on the Revealed art. It is unknown as to what role she will play, but only Companions were on the Kingmaker Reveal art, so she is likely a Companion. In Tabletop, she was explicitly Romanceable, so she is likely a romance option.
* There is a Mongrelman on the reveal art. This is Lann, an important NPC from the first book of Wrath.
*Irabeth Tirabade and her wife Annevia are confirmed to be in the game. It is unknown in what capacity.
* Wrath has an Extremely large Cast of friendly NPC characters. It is likely that some of these will become Companions, and that some will get cut. We're probably also getting some Original companions.
*Characters from Kingmaker will make an appearance. No Word on what characters, or who, or how, or why.


Miscellaneous stuff:
*Alexander Mishulin, Owlcat's Creative Director, promised fewer bugs on release. He mentioned new Narrative Tools. These were revealed on Discord as being "Etudes" Instead of on/off variables in the narrative tree, Etudes apparently offer multi-set variables. This allows more freedom to make complicated choices without creating a terrifying tangle of code. Not being a Programmer, that's all I got out of the explanation.
* "Players of the original adventure path will encounter a lot of familiar faces and encounters, but [there] also will be new characters, twists, and stories"
*The game will be Darker in Visual Style and Tone.
* Chris Avellone is back on board lending a hand and supporting the narrative team as he did with Pathfinder: Kingmaker.
* Owlcat is working to make the game more User-Friendly for Players unfamiliar with the Pathfinder System.
 
Really interested in this of course. However I'm not too sold on this:
*The game will be Darker in Visual Style and Tone.

I quite liked the "vanilla" fantasy feel of the first game. It was a nice refreshing tone after all the grim dark fantasy games of late. At least in visual style.
 
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It always impresses me when developers talk about everything except the one thing I want to know.
Timers. Erradicated or returning to annoy players even more. Why keeping it a secret?
 
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Finally, Since the underlying engine is the same (if updated), it seems likely that we'll be seeing more of the Kingdom Building system. In Wrath you need to lead a Crusade

You do not lead a Crusade in Wrath. The leader is Queen Galfrey and she gives you orders in the AP. If they cut her just to shoehorn "kingdom management" in, I don't know what to say.

The only "secondary management" the PCs does in the AP (outside mass battles) is help rebuild a city in chapter 3 and only that chapter for plot reasons.

More info:

When Questioned devs said that they had reworked the Mythic system so that it was more powerful. Both why and how are unknown at this time.

The pnp version allow witches to put to sleep everything on a battlefield without them being allowed to make saves unless they are also mythic (aka bosses) which is the equivalent of insta-death and Level ~15 Mythic Paladin smith for ~600 damage, enough to one-shot CR25 evil dragons.

That's not powerful enough??? :S

The Succubus Arueshalae is on the Revealed art.
Awesome character, but you only really interact with her past the half point of the story in the AP. A bit late for a companion...unless Owlcat substantially change the how the story works (aka speed through chapter 2).

Really interested in this of course. However I'm not too sold on this:
*The game will be Darker in Visual Style and Tone.

I quite liked the "vanilla" fantasy feel of the first game. It was a nice refreshing tone after all the grim dark fantasy games of late. At least in visual style.

It set on the border and inside a region infested by demons for centuries. You also spend a bunch of time in the Abyss (think BG2 underdark chapter).

It always impresses me when developers talk about everything except the one thing I want to know.
Timers. Erradicated or returning to annoy players even more. Why keeping it a secret?

The only chapter were any kind of timers makes sense is the 3rd one. Of course, Owlcat might think only the 3rd chapter matters so the game feels more like Kingmaker instead of being its own thing.
 
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The pnp version allow witches to put to sleep everything on a battlefield without them being allowed to make saves unless they are also mythic (aka bosses) which is the equivalent of insta-death and Level ~15 Mythic Paladin smith for ~600 damage, enough to one-shot CR25 evil dragons.

That's not powerful enough??? :S
Yeah, I was wary of the 'Mythic' tag even before reading they wanted to edit the module so PCs are even more powerful... if I wanted to casually play a god character, I'd just pick up an A-RPG.
 
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Full official announcement

Some new details in there:

There are adding more than Witch and Oracle as new classes, they will announce them later.

Mythic
You may choose the path of the immortal lich, wielding powerful spells and commanding an army of undead; the path of the angel, summoning celestial allies into battle and meting bolts of divine judgment upon foes; or something else entirely. Or the path of the trickster, causing mischief and fun even in the middle of the demon-filled abyss, warping the reality itself and turning the dices into “natural 20” from “1” to score a critical hit.

There is a bit more in the VentureBeat interview. Looks like some companions won't be fan of you if you got full Lich…
 
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I think Owlcat is showing what the Tricksters looks like in game with this tweet (replicated below). I guess the mythic choices appearance are saint, grey parchment or sparkles. ;)

…∧_∧
..( ・>・。)つ━☆・*。
⊂   ノ    ・゜+.
…しーJ   °。+ ´¨)
         .· ´¸.·´¨) ¸.·¨)
          (¸.·´ (¸.·'☆
Whoosh!
You will roll only 20s!

They will also post with hash tags (#wrath_of_lore and #wrath_of_system) for more info about the game. I'm not really interested in being a twitter stalker, hopefully I can just take the info from the official forum or Reddit.
 
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Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous Interview - VentureBeat
In some ways, Owlcat feels like a Pathfinder studio, similar to Beamdog and its focus on lovingly preserving old Dungeons & Dragons games.

“[Pathfinder’s] catalog is fantastic. When you browse through their world guide and see a nation, you want to have an adventure there,” Owlcat creative director Alexander Mishulin said in an interview last week. “The stories told in the adventure paths are really great, and you either want to play them or game-master them. And here, what we’re doing, we’re really game-mastering to the whole RPG audience.

“This is what draws us. All the stories about this world are great and inspire us to bring even more to this world and tell more stories about it.”

Owlcat Games head Oleg Shpilchevskiy notes how using Pathfinder for their studio’s base is akin to working from a foundation.

“Pathfinder is based on a very mechanical system, with which you can build everything,” he said. “So combining deep mechanical stuff with the imagination of the Golarion setting, which we’re crazy about, with great characters –”

And Mishulin interjects with “and great, great character building. And the people who are into these kinds of games are into the mechanics and the fighting, and Pathfinder brings both stories and mechanics into the mix.”
 
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I hope they learn from the mistakes of the first one re: all the bugs and re-use of maps to create filler content. Not to mention the tiresome final chapter - which I found easy but boring as hell fighting wave and wave of the same enemies (Wild hunts etc).

To be honest it would of been my game of the year if it wasn't for that final chapter.
 
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Aye, certainly they'll have learned from the launch of the prior game and not repeat certain mistakes. Even with that said, I know I won't be touching this newest product for at least four to six months after launch, I did learn my lesson the first time.
 
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No chance I will be able to resist playing it upon release. These days I just hardly become excited about new game announcements, so I need to enjoy this rare feeling :)

I didnt notice any game-spoiling bug in Kingmaker and I started to play one week after initial release. Im sure I was just super lucky, but Im more then willing to test my luck once again in this case.
 
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No chance I will be able to resist playing it upon release. These days I just hardly become excited about new game announcements, so I need to enjoy this rare feeling :)

I didnt notice any game-spoiling bug in Kingmaker and I started to play one week after initial release. Im sure I was just super lucky, but Im more then willing to test my luck once again in this case.
I hear ya getting excited about a new game is rare for me nowadays also. My two gripes were the constant load screens, and the last couple of acts were full of bugs.

Anyway my problem lies most with the unity engine used for RPGs. I wont go into detail as my opinion is well know already for various issues with the games and engine.
 
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I must be crazy because I love Unity. Seems games can be made efficiently and productively with it. Then again I am no engine expert. Seems the high graphics engines don't have as many features for interactivity in the games, but that's just what I've observed.
 
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My three main problems with Unity games.

1. Memory Leaks
2. Video Card Fan Errors/ Card runs Hot
3. Load times/Texture Loading

Though after version five some of the problems have been patched.

Someone needs to find a way for data to load/stream better for Unity games. PoE 1/2 and Tyranny had the same problem with area transitions. Guess Witcher III spoiled me.
 
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