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Pillars of Eternity Beta - Torment: Tides of the Beetles

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Really looking forward to this, but think I'll wait a while before playing though. Despite best efforts, there's bound to be bugs that need to be patched out.


WanderingWind said:
I thought about buying a ton of copies and handing them out to people who thought Dragon Age: Inquisition was the best RPG ever, you know, like alms for the poor? Then I realized they might have mistaken the codes for food and tried to stick it up their noses or something.

Still, it's a good deal for those who want to spread the gospel.
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Can I subscribe to your newsletter?

I, too, believe that people with different tastes than me are deficient.
 
Divinity was kinda the right game at the right time though. I'm not sure Poe is gonna capture the general steam population's interest like that did.
 
Well, I couldn't kickstart it but I did my part at least.

CvgcHON.png
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Yes, I got a cheap key from Nuveem. Its the only way I could afford it.
 
Zabojnik said:
Goddamn.
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DAT LARIAN MONEY YO

Also Kickstarting this was the biggest deal ever. 40$ for the main game and the expansion pack.

Completely forgot about the documentary. Was surprised when i saw it today cause its actually good. They need to release it in full for maximum hypes but i dont think they will cause spoilers and shit
 
Divinity's currently on page 3 of the Steam top sellers list, for me. Pillars is on page 4.

RIP Obsidian. A very fitting end, indeed.

petghost said:
Divinity was kinda the right game at the right time though. I'm not sure Poe is gonna capture the general steam population's interest like that did.
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I don't recall much buzz or talk at all about Divinity until right before it's release, when there was suddenly a tidal wave of positive impressions that only got bigger as time went on. It seems to me this happened because of a mixture of innovative, ambitious game design, a starved audience, and a perfect storm of Kickstarter + Early Access curiosity, altogether creating the unstoppable force that made "Divinity" a well-known name. (Original Sin is, like, the fifth game in the Divinity series.)
 
LurkerPrime said:
Divinity's currently on page 3 of the Steam top sellers list, for me. Pillars is on page 4.

RIP Obsidian. A very fitting end, indeed.



I don't recall much buzz or talk at all about Divinity until right before it's release, when there was suddenly a tidal wave of positive impressions that only got bigger as time went on. It seems to me this happened because of a mixture of innovative, ambitious game design, a starved audience, and a perfect storm of Kickstarter + Early Access curiosity, altogether creating the unstoppable force that made "Divinity" a well-known name. (Original Sin is, like, the fifth game in the Divinity series.)
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Divinity also had that wow factor in terms of Gifs, streams and youtube videos. The combat really sold the game because people were able to do really crazy off the wall stuff like make walls of barrels and exploding barrels and take out bosses and do impressive looking elemental attacks and stuff. It was all very easily communicated to new players what the game was about. Watch a cool gif, see an impressive vid and you get it no problem. That shit sells games. PoE doesn't have that, it's got nostalgia galore, but that probably won't do too much for people who never played the IE games.

Hopefully there are enough good streams and youtube vids to spread the good word around, but it's a bit harder a sale than other games. That said I still think it will do quite well. It's hard to gauge just how much hype there is for the game. And it did do amazingly well on Kickstarter so it's not without people's interests.
 
Enduin said:
Divinity also had that wow factor in terms of Gifs, streams and youtube videos. The combat really sold the game because people were able to do really crazy off the wall stuff like make walls of barrels and exploding barrels and take out bosses and do impressive looking elemental attacks and stuff. It was all very easily communicated to new players what the game was about. Watch a cool gif, see an impressive vid and you get it no problem. That shit sells games. PoE doesn't have that, it's got nostalgia galore, but that probably won't do too much for people who never played the IE games.

Hopefully there are enough good streams and youtube vids to spread the good word around, but it's a bit harder a sale than other games. That said I still think it will do quite well. It's hard to gauge just how much hype there is for the game. And it did do amazingly well on Kickstarter so it's not without people's interests.
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Yeah, I suspect you're right. With Steam's new store users will only really be seeing items just before they release, and - upon release - popular items (such as PoE) will get a lot of visibility. On release day it'll probably top the charts, and then reviews and user word of mouth will decide how long it's relevant.

If Obsidian can deliver a technically solid game PoE should have nice, long legs, and hopefully a fair amount of cash.

It'll be interesting to see if Obsidian goes back to Kickstarter for their next game. IIRC Larian Studios decided to forego Kickstarter for their next project, which is a very interesting choice when they're one of the big success stories.
 
LurkerPrime said:
Yeah, I suspect you're right. With Steam's new store users will only really be seeing items just before they release, and - upon release - popular items (such as PoE) will get a lot of visibility. On release day it'll probably top the charts, and then reviews and user word of mouth will decide how long it's relevant.

If Obsidian can deliver a technically solid game PoE should have nice, long legs, and hopefully a fair amount of cash.

It'll be interesting to see if Obsidian goes back to Kickstarter for their next game. IIRC Larian Studios decided to forego Kickstarter for their next project, which is a very interesting choice when they're one of the big success stories.
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As long as the game is good and releases in a not completely fucked up state they should be fine. I think there's a big enough audience that wants a RTw/P RPG with a really good story and companions.

Having the backing of Paradox should help a lot. Look at what they've done with Cities Skylines. Also while the response so far on GAF is pretty relatively quiet, there's a good amount of buzz on places like Reddit and SA.
 
~Kinggi~ said:
Well it couldnt have happened to nicer guys over there at Larian hopefully they are happy about it.
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Yep, it's great seeing them be successful with D:OS. Now they have the freedom to explore avenues that had previously been closed off to them due to lack of funds. They now have money, fans, and good will. If Swen plays his cards right the company should hopefully enter a golden age.

While I'd love for Obsidian to have a similar level of success, I think they're going to have a hard time matching D:OS' popularity. The game just has a more niche look and feel to it. The fixed isometric camera with 2D backgrounds. The lack of any real companion AI. The throwback of a UI. I mean, I threw $250 at the Kickstarter, so I believe in Obsidian and really hope they do well, but I just don't see PoE reaching quite the same critical mass. Would love to be proven wrong though.
 
Zalusithix said:
Yep, it's great seeing them be successful with D:OS. Now they have the freedom to explore avenues that had previously been closed off to them due to lack of funds. They now have money, fans, and good will. If Swen plays his cards right the company should hopefully enter a golden age.

While I'd love for Obsidian to have a similar level of success, I think they're going to have a hard time matching D:OS' popularity. The game just has a more niche look and feel to it. The fixed isometric camera with 2D backgrounds. The lack of any real companion AI. The throwback of a UI. I mean, I threw $250 at the Kickstarter, so I believe in Obsidian and really hope they do well, but I just don't see PoE reaching quite the same critical mass. Would love to be proven wrong though.
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How did Wasteland 2 do in terms of sales? I never really followed it's progress. That game seemed like it had significant technical issues though and has never looked as good as PoE has looked.
 
Lingitiz said:
Oh wow, better than I thought. I felt like that game suffered from having way too long of an early access period, and also releasing so soon after Divinity. I know I didn't pick it up because I was still playing Divinity at the time.
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Want a copy? Pretty sure I still have a spare Steam code from all the cross promotion of the game back in the day that I forgot to raffle off. (Ironically the one from backing PoE)
 
Enduin said:
PoE should have no problem then clearing 500k then. Might not make it to 800k like D:OS, but if it can't beat out Wasteland 2 by a good margin something is terribly terribly wrong in the world.
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It might be the Obsidian fanboy in me talking, but I honestly think that if Obsidian delivers with Pillars of Eternity then it should match or even surpass D:OS.
 
Enduin said:
PoE should have no problem then clearing 500k then. Might not make it to 800k like D:OS, but if it can't beat out Wasteland 2 by a good margin something is terribly terribly wrong in the world.
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I actually believe PoE will surpass Divinity and reach that 1 million milestone.
As mentioned above, Divinity didn't push that much on marketing and ads, gaming sites didn't really cover the game as well until near-release. PoE, in the other hand, seem better in those aspects so far.
 
Lingitiz said:
How did Wasteland 2 do in terms of sales? I never really followed it's progress. That game seemed like it had significant technical issues though and has never looked as good as PoE has looked.
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Which is one reason why I'm cautiously optimistic about PoE, provided they release it in an acceptable state. Wasteland 2 was a bit of a mess at launch and while I think the game looks just fine, the graphics aren't exactly a selling point. That didn't stop me from putting nearly 100 fun hours into it though :P On the other hand, PoE's recent screenshots made a lot of my friends go 'oooh!'. So there's that at least.

I think a lot will ride on whether PoE becomes known as "a true spiritual successor to Baldur's Gate 2" in the general gaming community.
 
texhnolyze said:
I actually believe PoE will surpass Divinity and reach that 1 million milestone.
As mentioned above, Divinity didn't push that much on marketing and ads, gaming sites didn't really cover the game as well until near-release. PoE, in the other hand, seem better in those aspects so far.
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You can't discount the power of people talking though. Divinity didn't have much official marketing, but it had a lot of talk surrounding it just the same. It also got quite favorable reviews after the fact in the more traditional media.

It'll be interesting to watch how it all turns out. Here's to hoping for a solid game and plenty of sales for Obsidian!
 
Another thing divinity has that PoE doesn't is the really fun multiplayer aspect, I bought the dual pack during the summer for me and my beau to play together with. It was really fun, to the point that playing it single player seemed lackluster.

Also watching this documentary and thinking about the interviews where they said they were purely focussing on PC for the game, makes me think that they have been burnt by console game concelations too many times before.
 
Pray For Death said:
I hope it sells enough for them to self-fund their next game without kickstarter.
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I don't, at least the not doing Kickstarter part. I don't care if they make back 5 times what they put into the game I liked the way the Kickstarter worked with updates and videos about how development was going, what they reasoning was behind certain decisions and just overall glimpses into their development process.

Maybe they won't make as much the second time around and it will only make up a fraction of the overall budget which they'll fund themselves, but just because they don't absolutely need the money that KS provides doesn't mean it's not still worthwhile to use, for both parties.
 
JC Sera said:
Another thing divinity has that PoE doesn't is the really fun multiplayer aspect, I bought the dual pack during the summer for me and my beau to play together with. It was really fun, to the point that playing it single player seemed lackluster.
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It's an unpopular opinion around here and everywhere else, but yeah. I had some truly epic games of BG1+2 just a few months ago. I played the role of the worn wanderer and guided a few friends though the story (though never explicitly telling them what to do). It was there first time through the game and everyone had a blast. I know the IE multiplayer was just an afterthought but it worked.

So yeah, I am disappointed with no multiplayer for this.
 
I would have said that before Hong Kong but if Obsidian does something similar with the same smart, well thoughtout campaign I'm definitely there.
 
Enduin said:
I don't, at least the not doing Kickstarter part. I don't care if they make back 5 times what they put into the game I liked the way the Kickstarter worked with updates and videos about how development was going, what they reasoning was behind certain decisions and just overall glimpses into their development process.

Maybe they won't make as much the second time around and it will only make up a fraction of the overall budget which they'll fund themselves, but just because they don't absolutely need the money that KS provides doesn't mean it's not still worthwhile to use, for both parties.
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Kickstarter projects currently are running real risks of not making anywhere near what they used to make, at least for Rpgs like this since there seem to be more than a few now.

I feel like one way they might be able to overcome this issue is with the usual addictive updates like they did for the original but also make it a point people are getting basically a 40-50% discount on the game by backing. Im not sure if that has an impact on the whales spending a lot of money though.
 
terrisus said:
If them doing Kickstarter gets us games like this, I hope they keep doing Kickstarter :þ
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Thing is, if the game does poorly enough that they need another Kickstarter, then it's likely that the next Kickstarter isn't going to perform as well. Kickstarters run on promises and hype. You can't hype a Kickstarter much with "Brought to you by the people who's last Kickstarted game flopped!"

If it does do well, then they shouldn't need to fund again using Kickstarter, but they might choose to do so anyhow (ala the new Pebble). It's decent enough advertising, but it might backfire if you do it often enough. I'm of the opinion that the companies shouldn't take KS backing for granted and not get into the habit of relying on them. If your product sells well enough to fund your next game, you shouldn't go begging for money just because you can. If anything, pull what Larian did and ask for more later on when funds are drying up and you have something to show for it. Then you can promise refinement and expansion and have a better feel for a realistic release date.
Enduin said:
I liked the way the Kickstarter worked with updates and videos about how development was going, what they reasoning was behind certain decisions and just overall glimpses into their development process.
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Open development and crowd sourcing are two separate things. Devs can still do all the behind the scenes stuff and community interaction if they're self funding.
 
Zalusithix said:
Thing is, if the game does poorly enough that they need another Kickstarter, then it's likely that the next Kickstarter isn't going to perform as well. Kickstarters run on promises and hype. You can't hype a Kickstarter much with "Brought to you by the people who's last Kickstarted game flopped!"

If it does do well, then they shouldn't need to fund again using Kickstarter, but they might choose to do so anyhow (ala the new Pebble). It's decent enough advertising, but it might backfire if you do it often enough. I'm of the opinion that the companies shouldn't take KS backing for granted and not get into the habit of relying on them. If your product sells well enough to fund your next game, you shouldn't go begging for money just because you can. If anything, pull what Larian did and ask for more later on when funds are drying up and you have something to show for it. Then you can promise refinement and expansion and have a better feel for a realistic release date.


Open development and crowd sourcing are two separate things. Devs can still do all the behind the scenes stuff and community interaction if they're self funding.
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Flopping doesnt matter as much if the game delivers to the backers what they wanted. And it isnt a matter of need. They might like doing kickstarter instead of looking for a publisher. Harebrained Schemes did it. InXile looks like they want to do it for Bard's Tale.
 
HK-47 said:
Flopping doesnt matter as much if the game delivers to the backers what they wanted. And it isnt a matter of need. They might like doing kickstarter instead of looking for a publisher. Harebrained Schemes did it. InXile looks like they want to do it for Bard's Tale.
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Self funding isn't looking for a publisher. Self funding is taking advantage of the profits from your previous game and funding the development of the next one. Publishers make self funding damn near impossible due to the cut they take. They front the money to make the game, but on the flip side, they take damn near all the profits after release.

And yes, you could rely on a small subset of people to fund games that continually make no profit after release. It's just a risky proposition. One failed fund drive and you're bankrupt or on your knees in front of the publishers.
 
checked out the companions on the wiki page and the two Chris Avellone character are the two most interesting looking ones (shame that they apparently had to cut a lot of stuff out, though). The chanter companion looks annoying so I can probably safely roll a Chanter for my main character

one character I remember from the first beta footage that I thought was one of the companions turned out to be just a test character, I really liked the portrait so it looks like I'll have to play a boring human after all
 
Zalusithix said:
Open development and crowd sourcing are two separate things. Devs can still do all the behind the scenes stuff and community interaction if they're self funding.
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Sure they can, and some do, but they're not obligated to in the same way they are when a portion of their funding comes directly from backers. Plenty of KS devs have talked about this, I think Obsidian included, about how it places a certain extra degree of accountability because thousands of fans have given their money in support of this game before anything's been made. It's a fundamentally different dynamic between devs and fans than the normal development system.

As well Shadowrun is a good example of returning to KS for a second time. Return did pretty well and its KS campaign made 1.8 million, with an initial goal of 400k back in 2012. The standalone expansion Shadowrun HK make over 1.2 million with an initial goal of 100k in 2014. So despite coming back to the well 2 years later after successfully releasing their game and doing pretty well in sales they still managed to do quite well with the KS campaign.
 
Violet_0 said:
checked out the companions on the wiki page and the two Chris Avellone character are the two most interesting looking ones (shame that they apparently had to cut a lot of stuff out, though). The chanter companion looks annoying so I can probably safely roll a Chanter for my main character

one character I remember from the first beta footage that I thought was one of the companions turned out to be just a test character, I really liked the portrait so it looks like I'll have to play a boring human after all
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I'm probably going to roll chanter for the same reasons
also I am very partial to bards
however I get this niggling feeling the chanter companion is going to have a lot going for her, so I may see how dual Chanters go.
 
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