Pillars of Eternity

Japan is in the business of FPRPG, not iso rpgs as far as I know.

You don't mean First Person RP Gs, right? Because that is not at all true. Most Japanese RP Gs are either top down, or are variable camera third person.

Yes, I mean it.

Atlus released one just 2 years ago.

^^He is meaning dungeon crawlers of variant like Dungeon Master and Legend of Grimlock Though those two are western ones so I'd say that west and east is actually balanced on that rpg variant.

First person dungeon crawlers are pretty popular in Japan, yeah. There's a whole series of Japan-exclusive Wizardry games that spun off from the original Sir-Tech series.

Plus Etrian Odyssey that already reached it's fourth installement, Strange Journey and Atlus is bringing back Soul Hackers in glorious stereoscopic 3D fully voice-acted and stuff.

So yeah, Japan is big for FPRPGS

Well, Sawyer's going to explain story and plot today. Neato.

Also, side note, I really hope they ignore people from places like Reddit and Bio Ware Forums. Nothing good has ever come from pandering to those fanbases. Trust me.

The Obsidian forums are a complete mess right now as well, it's like it's been invaded by BSN with all that entails.

I'm sure Sawyer and the rest have the common sense to pick out the few potentially good ideas from the trash.

I don't think Reddit or BSN will even register on the kind of sites they'd be looking at (I know for certain that Sawyer would be looking at Something Awful, a few devs will probably be reading rpgcodex and they'll definitely be looking at the official forums, that's about it I'd expect).

edited 17th Sep '12 6:42:33 AM by ShadowScythe

Stretch goal #1 has been reached!

^^Eh, I haven't ever been under impression that Obsidian takes advice from players, but even if they do I doubt they would be dumb about it

BSN?

And, I still don't see it, re: first person RP Gs. Yes, Wizardry and Wizardry clones have survived in Japan, but they are a fairly trivial segment compared with third person perspective games.

Bioware Social Network

I don't really consider JRPGS to be RPGS. That's not to say they're terrible or whatever, they're just completely different from western ones.

And this is why I stick around here for gaming news. Official forums are like youtube comments in terms of quality.

... Why would you even think Obsidian would pay attention to the BSN? That's Bio Ware's site...

Also: RPG Codex? I hope they don't pay attention to people there. NMA, fine, those guys can be cool sometimes, at least.

NMA is sometimes cool in the same way that a broken clock is sometimes right.

The only real assholes are some of the forumgoers. But that's true for every site.

Depends on the Codexer and NMA user. If they're the stereotypical PC elitist douchebags who haven't bought a game since 2001 but have felt the need to whine about every single video game that's been released since then, than hell no, they need to shut their traps. But a lot of the users there are pretty reasonable people who are experienced and knowledgeable about RP Gs, unlike a certain IG Norant site...

edited 17th Sep '12 1:46:54 PM by Kev-O

Kev-O has it right more or less.

There's a lot of shit to filter through the codex but they also have some great discussion about RP Gs which is always worth a read.

Plus every now and then there's stuff like this◊ which is freaking hilarious.

You are easily amused

No it's hilarious.

Anyway, Update

The premise reminds me the most of Arcanum but idea of the player character being an ordinary schlub or witnesses or ends up becoming part of something much bigger is in a lot of Obsidian/Black Isle/Troika games like FNV, Mot B, Black Hound (if that really counts) and even Vtm B to an extent.

edited 17th Sep '12 4:54:26 PM by ShadowScythe

Anybody wanna take a guess as to why the first game I thought about after reading this was ME 2?

edited 17th Sep '12 4:53:19 PM by JotunofBoredom

So Joshua Sawyer is answering quite a few questions about the project on his Formspring if anyone wants a looksee.

I'm surprised at all the bitchy people. Especially the guy that removed his 250 dollar pledge after the first update. But whatevs.

That one is interesting because I never knew this was an opinion

Q: I'm sorry but the latest Kickstarter update made me cancel my $280 pledge. It sounds like you're planning a 3-4 player party and spending huge amounts on LARP features with no gameplay relevance. Might repledge if you can offer a good explanation.

A: What is a LARP feature?

Comments section: important bits

"It's Codexian for "a feature that has no gameplay impact but allows me to play pretend"

So apparently there is an opinion that unless something has an impact on gameplay it isn't relevant.

"You should have elaborated on why you thought that such a feature would enhance the game and what exactly it encompasses. Otherwise you're inviting comparision to similar "features" in games like Fable/Skyrim, not games which I wish to associate with."

Seriously? When's the last time you bought a fucking RPG? And this is pretty easy to answer. Convenience. Instead of having to run to a shop to sell off junk every 30 seconds you can throw it all into one location to shift through later.

Sawyer gets that over every project and every project announcement and every little design decision that can be scrutinised. It's honestly nothing surprising. People are easily annoyed and presumably the first response is to rage rather than ask for clarification. It's funny because most of the time it ends up being features they would actually like but still the kneejerk raging continues.

^^^Hopefully driving interest means more than demanding the player character to solve their entirely unrelated daddy issues.

Torment had the companions either be people already affected by TNO's past incarnations or people drawn his nature as a lodestone for their torment.

Arcanum's approach for the more, er, important companions (rather than the generic goons to hire like Sogg Mead Mug) was to just make them show up at major points on the player's journey to help them temporarily and then for the player to properly recruit if they built up a positive enough approval. Least that's how I remember it for Magnus, Raven and the Dark Elf lady.

I assume it'll be a mix of that.

edited 17th Sep '12 5:23:20 PM by ShadowScythe

edited 17th Sep '12 5:22:38 PM by fakeangelbr