Pillars of Eternity - Interviews & New Video

It has been a busy week for news on Pillars of Eternity. So for today I have two new interviews. and a new developer video of the games Beta.

So let's get started with the two interviews first.

Rock, Paper, Shotgun

Pillars of Eternity was, briefly, gaming’s most successful Kickstarter, at least in terms of funds raised. Like many crowdfunded games, particularly in the early days, it’s a project driven partly by nostalgia. A party-based fantasy RPG in the style of Baldur’s Gate and the other Infinity Engine D&D games, it has a strong heritage to live up to. Obsidian’s Josh Sawyer is the director of the game and I spoke to him late last week about theology, flagellant monks, freedom from licensing and respecting player’s choices. We also talked about his desire to make a historical RPG and his previous work, particularly the design of Fallout: New Vegas.

PCWorld

It's no secret I'm pretty excited for Pillars of Eternity, Obsidian's spiritual successor to 1990s CRPG classics like Baldur's Gate and Planescape Torment. In the past I've gone to Obsidian's headquarters to check out the game and chat with project lead Josh Sawyer, and then I saw a second demo at E3.

This time I sat down with Josh Sawyer here in San Francisco to discuss character creation and…well, a lot of other stuff.

And for last here in the new video from Dealspwn I promised above.

We're seeing a fair few nostalgia trips these days, blending old-school sensibilities with updated systems — distilling the elements that made classics like Baldur's Gate and Fallout and Elite so utterly brilliant and updating everything to provide a smoother experience that feeds our rose-tinted desires and removes any clunkiness or mechanical cobwebs.

Nostalgia is a powerful thing indeed, and it carried Pillars of Eternity (just called Project Eternity back then) to the top of Kickstarter's funded list, giving Obsidian Entertainment the chance to pay homage to the Infinity Engine games that put so many of its employees on the map.

Last week, we got the chance to check out the game and chat to project lead Josh Sawyer, who delivered a half-hour presentation bringing us up to speed on where development currently sits. There'll be a preview coming shortly, but here's the presentation in full for now. Apologies for the awful visuals (had a slight tech fail on the day).

More information.

The vid quality is bad but it's obvious that the game visually does look as a spiritual successor to Infinity engine games.
With highly probable epic story from Obsidian, this could easily be a bestseller. I'm just hoping that storywise it's not a spiritual successor to NWN.

Looks great. I just hope they aren't afraid to make some changes to the formula and innovate a little

Originally Posted by ilm
Looks great. I just hope they aren't afraid to make some changes to the formula and innovate a little

They've innovated by turning 3D production into 2D presentation. That said, it is the one aspect of "old school" RPGs I really hated. Give me a tiltable/rotating camera any day like NWN+ generation.

Originally Posted by joxer
The vid quality is bad but it's obvious that the game visually does look as a spiritual successor to Infinity engine games.
With highly probable epic story from Obsidian, this could easily be a bestseller. I'm just hoping that storywise it's not a spiritual successor to NWN.

I think they could have used less icons and snippets from the infinity games. If you take a look at the action icons or the scrollbar it's identical to the infinity games.

This video is better:
http://www.giantbomb.com/videos/quic…ity/2300-9224/

The cooldown visual for combat ist actually a good idea. But I miss a command stack.

I think that screen shot of the character build in the first interview is the first time I've seen one of their character "paper doll" figures. It looks good.

Originally Posted by Avantenor
This video is better:
http://www.giantbomb.com/videos/quic…ity/2300-9224/

The cooldown visual for combat ist actually a good idea. But I miss a command stack.

The video was posted yesterday on our site, but thanks for reminding anyone who didn't see it. The video from the above post does apologize for the quality.

As for me after the last two videos I'm glad I backed the game. I'm also more interested in Pillars of Eternity than Wasteland 2, and Tides of Torment.

Originally Posted by Couchpotato
The video was posted yesterday on our site, but thanks for reminding anyone who didn't see it. The video from the above post does apologize for the quality.

As for me after the last two videos I'm glad I backed the game. I'm also more interested in Pillars of Eternity than Wasteland 2, and Tides of Torment.

Agreed. Especially since I played almost 50 hrs of Wasteland 2, stopped playing it, and don't really miss it. Not a bad game, just not as good as I was expecting.

I don't like RTwP combat. It's a dated system, not enjoyable at all. The rest of the game looks great, the backgrounds are fantastic.

All I can say after seeing the video is I'm glad I didn't back the Pillars game, not impressed to say the least. Several things I'm not liking about it so far.

Originally Posted by rjshae
I think that screen shot of the character build in the first interview is the first time I've seen one of their character "paper doll" figures. It looks good.

For reals? First thing that came to mind is why didn't they go the extra mile and make the paper dolls look amazing.The fur on the barbarian has minecraft visuals and the colors they chose(purple) throw it off even more.Yes the detail will not be seen when you are zoomed out but come on its 2014….give us some realistic paper dolls finally.Some things just turn me off about POE sadly.

Originally Posted by Serestrum
I don't like RTwP combat. It's a dated system, not enjoyable at all. The rest of the game looks great, the backgrounds are fantastic.

RTwP outdated? Compared to what?

I'm really glad they went with RTwP. We have plenty of TB and RT games lately.

RTwP, to me, is the best system you can find. Turn-based is great also, but I love being able to watch live action while pausing to give specific commands. It just feels good to play that way.

RTwP for me as well. Best of both worlds imho. Sometimes, in TB all you really have for that warrior/archer to do is just another basic attack. No reason why you have to take a turn to tell him/her to do the same thing.

I would like RTwP a lot more in BG and Torment if the combat pacing wasnt so odd, it's extremely fast when unpaused, so you either get hyperspeed or pause (i hate the auto-pause option, it feels like a very crappy 'hack', not at all like true TB).

Yes, you get the hang of it after a while but i still think it's pretty bad, especially things like healing and many other spells which often are so slow that combat might even be over and characters died before casting was finished. I often find myself predicting that character X might possibly need healing so i start casting it before he/she needs it.

I hope they've balanced it better here.

Originally Posted by Serestrum
I don't like RTwP combat. It's a dated system, not enjoyable at all. The rest of the game looks great, the backgrounds are fantastic.

+1. Turn based would have been better. But there is hope, indie games coming to rescue.

Originally Posted by Avantenor
I think they could have used less icons and snippets from the infinity games. If you take a look at the action icons or the scrollbar it's identical to the infinity games.

FWITW, those are just placeholders.

Originally Posted by JDR13
RTwP outdated? Compared to what?

I'm really glad they went with RTwP. We have plenty of TB and RT games lately.

Originally Posted by Fluent
RTwP, to me, is the best system you can find. Turn-based is great also, but I love being able to watch live action while pausing to give specific commands. It just feels good to play that way.

Originally Posted by SonOfCapiz
RTwP for me as well. Best of both worlds imho. Sometimes, in TB all you really have for that warrior/archer to do is just another basic attack. No reason why you have to take a turn to tell him/her to do the same thing.

The tactics in a RTwP system are extremely poor for me. See 4 guys, go towards them, keep hitting them 'till they drop, use some skills if you need to, heal some etc. All this while looking extremely silly, everyone standing in a line, others moving fast, others slow.
I mean, it could be good but I hardly believe Obsidian will implement a good A.I. Meanwhile, in TB you have positioning and stats/ skills that actually matter. You can win a losing battle with some smart moves, in RTwP it's all luck.
My favorite combat system is(was) ToEE but I have to say D:OS is an amazing evolution for turn based combat.

Originally Posted by Serestrum
The tactics in a RTwP system are extremely poor for me. See 4 guys, go towards them, keep hitting them 'till they drop, use some skills if you need to, heal some etc.

Hm… have you ever played BG? I mean… perhaps I always have a shitty skilled party, but for me there always are a lot of combats, where I have to use strategy to win. Things like buffing accordingly to the enemies weapons, breaching the enemy mage's defenses, use appropriate weapons/skills to hurt the enemy etc.
The one thing I can think about that isn't considered strategically are covers. Or what else are you thinking of?

Originally Posted by Serestrum
The tactics in a RTwP system are extremely poor for me. See 4 guys, go towards them, keep hitting them 'till they drop, use some skills if you need to, heal some etc. All this while looking extremely silly, everyone standing in a line, others moving fast, others slow.
.

In TB, you'll still "keep on hitting them" except now you have to take a turn just to keep doing the same thing you did before. in RTWP, i say "keep hitting him till I say otherwise", in TB I say "hit him:, "hit him", "hit him". I love turn based too but a properly implemented RTwP beats it imho.

The probelms you mentioned are problems with implementation, not with RTwP itself.