Obsidian's Pillars of Eternity

[Toonces]

You're high, Banzai Cat!   

[BanzaiCat]

If you enjoy watching any of that, more power to you.

Sorry I didn't mention volleyball. 

[MetalDog]

You shall all stoppeth hating on baseballeth!!  NOWETH!!  And American football has been proven to have eleven minutes of ball in play action in a three to three and a half hour broadcast.  That is all.

[Sir Slash]

Sorry Metaldog. Rays-6 Yankees-5. Damned good game though. Anybody remember where that Pillars of Eternity post was?

[Nefaro]

Anybody remember where that Pillars of Eternity post was?

Also.. has anyone played it yet?

[MetalDog]

Sorry Metaldog. Rays-6 Yankees-5. Damned good game though. Anybody remember where that Pillars of Eternity post was?

That's too bad.  The good thing about baseball is that there's always tomorrow.  And the reason I am in here stinking up the thread with horsehide and pine tar is because this looks like thee kind of game I should enjoy mightily.  And I am looking forward to impressions.

[panzerde]

Just played a couple of hours of it, and I'm hooked. If you're a Baldur's Gate I/II or NWN I/II fan this is going to appeal to you. It's very much the modernization of those game engines. Playing it was immediately comfortable and intuitive to me. It's just not set in the Forgotten Realms setting.

Really nice character customization options. I messed around for a good while creating my character, which I typically don't do on a first play. Lots of lore and background is made available even at the character creation stage, making it easy to build a character that fits in with the world building.

Once you get started on the first part of the game conversations you have with NPCs fill in more of your background based on answers you provide. Really a nice and immersive means of adding depth to your character.

Combat is real-time pausable. It feels like BG or NWN combat, but refined. There appears to be a suitably deep selection of skills and feats as you level up to allow you to build really variable characters within a class. Not all fighters, for example, are going to be alike.

Graphically it's very nice. It feels/looks like a refined NWN 2. Exploration is a big deal. It is not open world, but area maps. The area maps I've seen so far are pretty focused and didn't require me to do a lot of random wandering without much going on.

Definitely an RPG with an emphasis on RP. I'm early into it but there's clearly a significant story here that I just beginning to get pieces of. There's been a LOT of world building with real thought into cultures and their motivations, history, and how that's created the world you're in. And this is an old world. It seems like there are going to be a lot of ruins and signs of older civilizations to explore. It feels ancient and lived in.

Several different races to play, with significant differences in their base stats. The traditional human, elf, dwarven races are in, but there are at least two other major races that are playable and aren't clear analogs to traditional fantasy races. Within each race there are different cultures and ethnicities.

There's also a nice mix of classes ranging from the traditional fighter, rogue, wizard, priest classes to new classes like chanters. I had a hard time deciding what to be because several of them seemed really appealing. The different classes combined with the different races and backgrounds suggest a lot of replayability.

So far, this is very much what I was hoping for when I backed the project. So far, there's not been a ton of dramatically innovative stuff here in terms of combat or plot - this game is exactly what it says on the tin, a hearkening back to classic RPGs of the Obsidian/Black Isle era of Bioware games. It isn't going to be a radically different approach, but rather a king-sized serving of what made those games great, with improved graphics and gameplay. I'm pretty happy with that.

[Swatter]

I have put some time in it today. So far I think its awesome. The inspiration from the Baldur's Gate series is obvious and pretty much in your face. The graphics, UI, gameplay, combat, and overall options are evolved as would might expect 15 years on.

The story telling so far is very solid and vivid. Its not some flashy, kids tame D&D universe. There is a certain tree early on that will clue you in on that. I haven't done enough combat to make a firm judgment, but it operates on party mechanics and the character system (attributes, skills, talents) is a custom to Pillars system. You get a taste of the group mechanics early on and they are extremely similar to BG, but I am not experienced enough with the game to know really how everything works.

If you are a fan of BG, this is a no-brainer. If you like games that are heavy on exploration and difficult, party based combat; you can't really go wrong.

[Silent Disapproval Robot]

I put about an hour in, mostly just making my character and going through the opening scene/tutorial.  It definitely looks and plays a lot like Baldur's Gate/Temple of Elemental Evil.  I like the fact that there seems to be a lot of detail on the character sheets and in the log entries that you can drill down into if you so desire.  I also like that you can slow down the default combat speed and set it to auto-pause at time intervals of your choosing as well as when specific events happen.  (It's still a little too fast for my liking though, even at slow speed).

I've found a few bugs already.  If you remap the keys to the arrows or the number-pad, your new assignments will work but those keys also seem to be reserved for sub-menu scrolling (arrows) and formation pre-sets (numpad).  The reserved keys don't appear in the key bindings menu so there doesn't appear to be an easy way to fix this.  I'll see if I can find a conf.ini type file to piddle around with when I get back home.

Setting seems to be pretty typical high fantasy stuff.  Humans, grumbly dwaves, and faggy elves are all present.  The sneaky little guy hobbit race is there as well but this time it's some sort of rabbity humanoid thing.  The half-orc type big bruiser race is also available but it's some sort of fish-man thing.   Got your usual character classes as well.  Fighters, rangers, barbarians, paladins, rogues, wizards, druids, healer/cleric, chanter, etc.

If you like party based RPGs, this one seems like it could be a decent addition to the genre.

[Huw the Poo]

Thanks for the impressions, everyone.  It sounds extremely promising.

[Toonces]

Based on everything I'm hearing, then, it seems that the $45 price point is quite reasonable.

I've got a huge enough backlog of cRPG's that I don't need this right now.  I mean, I just don't.  But I'm enjoying hearing about you all grooving on it!

[undercovergeek]

Sold - bastards!

[Rayfer]

I take it then that you only create the one character with the rest of the party coming as npc's which you then control and level up.  This worked well in the original BG games. But in all honesty, I enjoyed the Wasteland 2 method where you create all your main party members with other npc's coming and going as the story unfolds.

[Silent Disapproval Robot]

You can create other characters and have them join your party at the inn.

[Rayfer]

You can create other characters and have them join your party at the inn.

Excellent....thanks.  Looking forward to this game some time soon.