Pillars of Eternity has "Gone Gold" :-)

[The Madman]

I need more than the Rule of Cool to get me into a class of race. Maybe this is showing me being a cRPG fan who never got people's love of board games and such like DnD when so much left to the imagination that there weren't hard rules when you had someone be a GM that could alter whatever they wished. I've always loved practical, grounded solid rules in a built world like Tolkien's than DnD where math and dice fill the meat of the mechanic side while you're at another persons whim for the world that could change unrealistically (unrealistic in this case not being like reality so much grounded in the rules of the world - the anathema being Star Trek's ungrounded technobabble saving the cast this week from an ungrounded technobabble danger).

I'd rather have some real semblance of power to back it up. If the only long term appeal for godlike are their strange heads, then I find that a terrible gimmick that needs patching.

Yeah, in most D&D incarnations the only real difference between races tended to be minor ones gameplay-wise. The majority of your racial decisions would be for roleplay reasons.

The major difference between a elf and dward in 2nd edition D&D for example (Which is Baldur's Gate's system) is that elves have bonus resistance to sleep and mind magic while Dwarves are strong against poisons and similar effects. Elves also got a bonus to dexterity, Dwarves to constitution is my memory serves me right. In later D&D like 3.5 (My favourite version, most notably used for the Neverwinter Nights games) the differences tended to be similarly small with humans getting an extra feat at character creation and others getting similar minor bonus.

Obviously if you wanted to min/max the perfect fighter or spellcaster there were clear choices, but the rest of the time your race selection was largely more for story reasons than gameplay ones, so for me 'strange heads' being an added appeal is pretty cool. I also like how even with the other races such as the humans, different sub-races would often have cosmetic effects. Apparently some roleplaying ones as well with racial options popping up in dialogue every now and again, which is something I always appreciate in rpg as it tends to be very prominent in actual D&D sessions.

Arcanum has so much potential and a awesome world, I hope they return to it and do it justice.

What it suffered from was incomplete world building, too much history and not enough physically fleshed out in the world. It feels like half the game is centered around 1/4 of the world map and most of that is one massive city that leaves the rest of the world "unnaturally" bare that reminds you that you're in a game and that it was most likely left very incomplete (which looking back is a early taste of Obsidian's crews overly ambitious aims).

Considering both the developer and publisher for Arcanum are gone, I wouldn't hold my breath for there ever being another Arcanum game sadly. Such a shame as I'd totally love more steampunk fantasy games, regardless of genre.

 

[beastro]

Considering both the developer and publisher for Arcanum are gone, I wouldn't hold my breath for there ever being another Arcanum game sadly. Such a shame as I'd totally love more steampunk fantasy games, regardless of genre.

Tim Cain, one of the three in the "Troika" is a apart of Obsidian, both which continue(d) BIS' legacy of cRPGs.

For a new Troika it remains where the rights are held, on his hands, in the Troika's or with Sierra and this Activision.

 

[KingsGambit_v1legacy]

Well, the keys are now available for backers...or me at least! I generated my Steam key, activated it (got a message about it not being released yet), and have finished pre-loading the 18GB client (voice-over language packs?).

Spoiler

Thanks Madman for that video, and baestro for those links. Some interesting info...didn't realise that stats weren't as effective as their D&D counterparts. I bought the digital guide book but may not have access to it until after midnight tonight (10 hrs)...I'd really like to read up some more on the stats and classes.

That character creator video was nice. Some useful info and will save some time tomorrow since I've got the gist of the basics now. I'm leaning towards Druid...I *love* shapeshifting as a mechanic and the ability to be a caster or a werewolf is very appealing. You lose out on gear while shifted, but it seems like the form is itself quite resilient and can still cast spells (which is quite uber).

Cipher and Chanter look interesting too. I like the idea of building up focus/whatever resources through combat then using these abilities. I do tend toward spellcasters, but the once a day spell thing is annoying. They should've just been "per encounter" like all the other class abilities. That's a throwback to D&D and truthfully, one mechanic I am generally glad to see gone in newer games. I much prefer a per encounter/mana pool mechanic. Followed by memorising, followed in last place by cooldowns (because f**k cooldowns).

I think I'll have a look around this evening for more info on classes and stats to see what kind of character I will roll with, tho from Madman's video I'm definitely thinking druid with might/dex primary and some con/per secondary.

 

[Slorgn]

Negative? And here I thought if anything I was letting myself get a wee bit too fanboyish for this game. I'm not ashamed to admit I'm pretty excited about Pillars of Eternity...

Ooops sorry, I wasn't fully awake yet, and probably mixed posts and users.

And what else can I say except that I disagree with you about real-time w/ pause gameplay? I loved it in the old Infinity Engine games, I've loved it in a handful of games released since (Temple of Elemental Evil for life yo, best D&D combat in a game ever!), and I look forward to seeing it again in the future including with Pillars of Eternity.

Your highlight is rather bizarre and seems more in favor of my comment on obsolescence of combats design choice of Pillars.

ToEE is fully turn based combat, in my opinion that's the future of party RPG with fighters, archers and other types of characters that have more than one main attack and a rare secondary attack.

I'm also pretty damned fond of Arcanum seeing as I've played the game to completion twice now. Guess we just have different interests in gaming, no shame there...

And again you bring more arguments to my comment about obsolescence of party RPG with real time combats with active pause, that is the design choice of Pillars for combats.

I don't think Pillars will suffer too much of this obsolescence in comparison of other party RPG released last years and that did the right design choice for party RPG combats, that is turn based. Pillars won't suffer too much of the comparison because all those RPG dev teams hadn't brilliant talents in their team for the design of combats.

For the classic AAA CRPG design of single character and over the shoulder view or close behind view or even first person view, all of that is totally similar and there's been too much clones of this blueprint. It's not a bad blueprint, it's just too many AAA CRPG used it, moreover it's not compatible with party RPG.

 

[DoPo]

Well, the keys are now available for backers...or me at least! I generated my Steam key, activated it (got a message about it not being released yet), and have finished pre-loading the 18GB client (voice-over language packs?).

Mine is available as well!

I'm going to wait and play it in few weeks time, though, as I expect the game to be a bit buggy at release.

At any rate, it says it's available for preloading on Steam - do you happen to know if I could get the GOG key yet?

 

[KingsGambit_v1legacy]

Well, the keys are now available for backers...or me at least! I generated my Steam key, activated it (got a message about it not being released yet), and have finished pre-loading the 18GB client (voice-over language packs?).

Mine is available as well!

I'm going to wait and play it in few weeks time, though, as I expect the game to be a bit buggy at release.

At any rate, it says it's available for preloading on Steam - do you happen to know if I could get the GOG key yet?

On the portal "Product" page, you can click a button to begin the process of generating your key. There is a message box before and after a window that lets you pick whether to generate a Steam key *or* a GoG one. On confirming, you get the key which activates the product on your chosen platform (I don't actually have any experience of activating something on GoG).

I also don't know how it would work on GoG in terms of pre-loading since it's DRM free. My steam download is *locked* for a short time yet (I was hoping midnight, but the Steam page says 20 hours as of the time of writing (4pm tomorrow, GMT). Since GoG doesn't have DRM it may be that it cannot be pre-loaded?

I wouldn't let the concern over bugs at release put you off. They delayed it (twice) by around 7 months altogether for the express purpose of polishing, tweaking and bug-squashing. Saying that, I absolutely respect that it is a perfectly valid preference. While all games have bugs of some sort or other on release, I don't expect game breaking ones. My understanding is that there is likely also a release day patch/update (tho considering it only went gold a week ago I'm not sure how extensive it will be!) which may contain some balance tweaks.

 

[DoPo]

On the portal "Product" page, you can click a button to begin the process of generating your key. There is a message box before and after a window that lets you pick whether to generate a Steam key *or* a GoG one.

Ah, right. I should have probably checked that myself. Thanks, anyway.

I also don't know how it would work on GoG in terms of pre-loading since it's DRM free. My steam download is *locked* for a short time yet (I was hoping midnight, but the Steam page says 20 hours as of the time of writing (4pm tomorrow, GMT). Since GoG doesn't have DRM it may be that it cannot be pre-loaded?

Probably not, but as I said, I don't plan on getting it immediately anyway. And even then, I'm on a 100 megabit connection at home - I'm not too worried about downloading.

I wouldn't let the concern over bugs at release put you off. They delayed it (twice) by around 7 months altogether for the express purpose of polishing, tweaking and bug-squashing. Saying that, I absolutely respect that it is a perfectly valid preference. While all games have bugs of some sort or other on release, I don't expect game breaking ones. My understanding is that there is likely also a release day patch/update (tho considering it only went gold a week ago I'm not sure how extensive it will be!) which may contain some balance tweaks.

Eh, I've been mostly consistently avoiding getting games on release for years now. I'd be fine.

 

[gmaverick019_v1legacy]

My steam download is *locked* for a short time yet (I was hoping midnight, but the Steam page says 20 hours as of the time of writing (4pm tomorrow, GMT). Since GoG doesn't have DRM it may be that it cannot be pre-loaded?

ugh dammit, I was hoping a VPN would circumvent waiting but apparently it's a hard date/time no matter where your IP address is, so 19 more hours it is...


I watched that race/class video, and from first impressions, I'm gonna roll either a cipher or paladin..tempting to do a moon godlike, but I may pick a different race.

 

[mavkiel]

Really tempted to get this game. I loved Baulders gate.

Class wise - not sure what I'd pick. I was tempted to go for a priest, but out of all the classes that one was easily the most boring looking. (From looking at the manual). Really wanted more of a hellfire and damnation D&D feel, opposed to MMO heal bot.

So its either Wizard/chanter/cipher/paladin for me.

 

[DarkhoIlow]

I already got this game preloaded and tomorrow I'm ready to jump right in blind! Hyped is an understatement. I wasn't expecting such a large install however (18GB on a 2D game must mean that there is A LOT of content to go through).

I will go for my typical class in these RPG's which is either Fighter or Barbarian.

 

[Slorgn]

For me the download is only 5.7GB but perhaps once installed it's uncompressed.

Pillars is using a similar approach than Shadowrun Returns and Shadowrun Dragonfall, that is only the environment is 2D Iso. Characters and effects are 3D, but I suspect for SRR and SRD that objects, environment items are also 3D but I never read anything that confirm this.

 

[Chester Rabbit]

Well the game is out. So tell me Escapist intelligentsia. How much do you hate it? How much does it fail to meet your expectations and your standards as gamers? How much does it fail as a homage to the games it was inspired by?

Come on now. I know at least 5 of you have an essays worth of scathing criticism to throw at this thing. Let's hear it.

 

[BLAHwhatever]

It's not out yet, for me atleast.
The PC Gamer Review is out though, giving it a 92/100

http://www.pcgamer.com/pillars-of-eternity-review/
seems quite good

 

[BloatedGuppy]

Well the game is out. So tell me Escapist intelligentsia. How much do you hate it? How much does it fail to meet your expectations and your standards as gamers? How much does it fail as a homage to the games it was inspired by?

Come on now. I know at least 5 of you have an essays worth of scathing criticism to throw at this thing. Let's hear it.

No one has played it yet. Review embargo is up, but the game hasn't unlocked. Which puts the metacritic user scores in perspective, and underlines once more how absolutely fucking useless they are in every possible respect.

To call the critical reviews "glowing" would be a disservice, they're ridiculously effusive with their praise. In spite of this I'm STILL somewhat wary, because Shadowrun was so "meh" and Wasteland 2 was such an unmitigated turd, and both those games got decent if not spectacular reviews. However I kickstarted the bloody thing so my wariness is really neither here nor there because I already own it. It just raises the question of "do I play this now", or do I finish Far Cry 4 first?

 

[Slorgn]

So you suggest play Far Cry 4 instead of Shadowrun Dragonfall or Wasteland 2 and I suppose also Divinity Original Sin?

You should not try give games advices to CRPG players, for them your tastes will certainly be doubtful no matter the CRPG player type. Seriously summon Far Cry 4 in a CRPG thread, that's very bizarre, facepalm.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

So you suggest play Far Cry 4 instead of Shadowrun Dragonfall or Wasteland 2 and I suppose also Divinity Original Sin?

You should not try give games advices to CRPG players, for them your tastes will certainly be doubtful no matter the CRPG player type. Seriously summon Far Cry 4 in a CRPG thread, that's very bizarre, facepalm.

The fuck?

I play a great many different games, Slorgn. Being an RPG fan does not stop my appreciation of shooters, or strategy, or simulation, or any other genre. And I didn't recommend anyone play Far Cry 4, I stated I was currently playing it and debating whether or not to switch to PoE before finishing.

Dragonfall was an "okay" game. Shadowrun Returns was middling to mildly poor. Wasteland 2 was a turd. Divinity: Original Sin was pretty great, if solely on the strength of its tactical meatiness. If you want to see my "RPG credentials" I played the original fucking Wasteland. I played the original Bard's Tale trilogy. I played all nine Ultimas, most of the Wizardry titles, and a good chunk of Might and Magic, while they were new. I played both Baldur's Gates, Planescape Torment, all the Fallouts, Icewind Dale, and pretty much every major RPG release since the late 90's.

Good enough? Yes, no?

 

[koobismo]

It's not out yet, for me atleast.
The PC Gamer Review is out though, giving it a 92/100

http://www.pcgamer.com/pillars-of-eternity-review/
seems quite good

Playing it right now, is pretty amazing, truth be told. Hits all the right marks for me, in both presentation and atmosphere... And story, of course. Seriously, haven't been excited for any game like this in a while, I'm grinning while playing.

 

[endtherapture]

It's not out yet, for me atleast.
The PC Gamer Review is out though, giving it a 92/100

http://www.pcgamer.com/pillars-of-eternity-review/
seems quite good

Playing it right now, is pretty amazing, truth be told. Hits all the right marks for me, in both presentation and atmosphere... And story, of course. Seriously, haven't been excited for any game like this in a while, I'm grinning while playing.

They've put enough nods to the old games to make it feel classic, but with obviously updated graphics and more modern gameplay which reeeeally makes it hit all of the targets for me so far.

 

[BLAHwhatever]

Same here. I'm loving it. It's like reading a very good book.
Not too far into it. But I love it so far.

 

[gmaverick019_v1legacy]

...slight update.

I'm going to punch every single will o wisp right in the throat. Fucking hate those things, so stupid to have towards the beginning of the game where my guys can't do shit to combat them.