Ugh, I still haven't been able to play kingmaker in linux since I'm missing music and a ton of sounds. The EE of NWN had the same issue but eventually got fixed. Sucks, because that's my main OS where I do everything else, including my work.
I think Tyranny sold pretty poorly, as well. A shame since I loved that game. I definitely rate it better than either of the Pillars games.
Honestly, i believe that if they crowdfund an "game inspired on new vegas" in a steampunk universe, they will get some millions easily. I don't know how hard is his financial trouble....
I'd have gone with space cowboy, like more in the vein of cowboy bebop, firefly and the expanse, but steam punk could be interesting.
My main problem with space/futuristic games is that weapons look much more like toys than actual functional weapons. The exception are the post apocalypse futuristic games like Metro and FNV. Planetside 2 for eg have "railguns" who are worse in muzzle speed and bullet penetration than Russian Empire main rifle(Mosin Nagant - 7.62×54mmR who can reach 865 m/s muzzle speed and pierce 14mm of steel), to be fair, on Firefly the weapons doesn't look like toys.
Not mention, Cyberpunk 2077 will be launched and compete in the same genre/same theme with CD projekt red is a suicide... If both companies have the same futuristic sci-fi game, everyone will play first from CD projekt red and wait until the sci-fi game from Obsidian in at massive discount, this on the best case scenario. Anyway, any kickstarter Obsidian project can raise enouth money for then to try something "new"; if they don't have to face a direct concorrency from the most beloved company.
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And is sad how PoE 2 sold porly despite being much better than the first one. Keep in mind that you can't just multiply $49.99 for 200k and have the profits of Obsidian, steam take around 30%, and some regions like South America, Eastern Europe, etc have diferential prices to combat piracy in this regions.
Honestly, i believe that if they crowdfund an "game inspired on new vegas" in a steampunk universe, they will get some millions easily. I don't know how hard is his financial trouble....
I'd have gone with space cowboy, like more in the vein of cowboy bebop, firefly and the expanse, but steam punk could be interesting.
My main problem with space/futuristic games is that weapons look much more like toys than actual functional weapons. The exception are the post apocalypse futuristic games like Metro and FNV. Planetside 2 for eg have "railguns" who are worse in muzzle speed and bullet penetration than Russian Empire main rifle(Mosin Nagant - 7.62×54mmR who can reach 865 m/s muzzle speed and pierce 14mm of steel), to be fair, on Firefly the weapons doesn't look like toys.
Not mention, Cyberpunk 2077 will be launched and compete in the same genre/same theme with CD projekt red is a suicide... If both companies have the same futuristic sci-fi game, everyone will play first from CD projekt red and wait until the sci-fi game from Obsidian in at massive discount, this on the best case scenario. Anyway, any kickstarter Obsidian project can raise enouth money for then to try something "new"; if they don't have to face a direct concorrency from the most beloved company.
--------------------------------
And is sad how PoE 2 sold porly despite being much better than the first one. Keep in mind that you can't just multiply $49.99 for 200k and have the profits of Obsidian, steam take around 30%, and some regions like South America, Eastern Europe, etc have diferential prices to combat piracy in this regions.
I don't really have an issue with weapons looking like toys, I've had people criticize my purchase of a Glock 17 by saying "you bought a plastic gun!?" And then I explain to them, that to me plastics are the space age material, and show them that only the grip is plastic. Then I show them videos of people running over a glock with a jeep, and the gun still firing. Newer military designs are based off the xbox controller for drones and other remote robotics devices. It makes sense, if the recruits are familiar with it, and if it works. Funnily enough weapon design is influenced by toys. This is coming from a keyboard and mouse guy.
I like to joke that the American grenade was based off a baseball, since most Americans knew how to throw a baseball. The German grenade was based off a bottle. What does that tell you about Germans? FNV was totally based off old west, though, so a huge amount of weapons are cowboy style stuff. Not everything, mind you, but quite a lot. I do dig me some cowboy style shooting, though.
Honestly, i believe that if they crowdfund an "game inspired on new vegas" in a steampunk universe, they will get some millions easily. I don't know how hard is his financial trouble....
I'd have gone with space cowboy, like more in the vein of cowboy bebop, firefly and the expanse, but steam punk could be interesting.
My main problem with space/futuristic games is that weapons look much more like toys than actual functional weapons. The exception are the post apocalypse futuristic games like Metro and FNV. Planetside 2 for eg have "railguns" who are worse in muzzle speed and bullet penetration than Russian Empire main rifle(Mosin Nagant - 7.62×54mmR who can reach 865 m/s muzzle speed and pierce 14mm of steel), to be fair, on Firefly the weapons doesn't look like toys.
Not mention, Cyberpunk 2077 will be launched and compete in the same genre/same theme with CD projekt red is a suicide... If both companies have the same futuristic sci-fi game, everyone will play first from CD projekt red and wait until the sci-fi game from Obsidian in at massive discount, this on the best case scenario. Anyway, any kickstarter Obsidian project can raise enouth money for then to try something "new"; if they don't have to face a direct concorrency from the most beloved company.
--------------------------------
And is sad how PoE 2 sold porly despite being much better than the first one. Keep in mind that you can't just multiply $49.99 for 200k and have the profits of Obsidian, steam take around 30%, and some regions like South America, Eastern Europe, etc have diferential prices to combat piracy in this regions.
I don't really have an issue with weapons looking like toys, I've had people criticize my purchase of a Glock 17 by saying "you bought a plastic gun!?" And then I explain to them, that to me plastics are the space age material, and show them that only the grip is plastic. Then I show them videos of people running over a glock with a jeep, and the gun still firing. Newer military designs are based off the xbox controller for drones and other remote robotics devices. It makes sense, if the recruits are familiar with it, and if it works. Funnily enough weapon design is influenced by toys. This is coming from a keyboard and mouse guy.
I like to joke that the American grenade was based off a baseball, since most Americans knew how to throw a baseball. The German grenade was based off a bottle. What does that tell you about Germans? FNV was totally based off old west, though, so a huge amount of weapons are cowboy style stuff. Not everything, mind you, but quite a lot. I do dig me some cowboy style shooting, though.
Plastic guns looks like functional guns, plastic offers advantages like less weight but offers disadvantages too like maintenance, i have no problems with it or the grenade example too, they are far different than for example an neon "stealth" "railgun" rifle who fires projectile at slower speed than airsoft guns...
This from hunt : showdown (note that they added some "fantasy elements")
Is much more immersive than this
Or this
To be fair, one fantasy game that have cool and functional looking weapons is FF VII Dirge of Cerberus, i don't know if a tri barrel revolver will be practical, but considering that Volley gun was useful since 15th century and you can have a multi barrel cannon on your ship on PoE 2, i don't have any problems with this guns.
An steampunk rpg sounds epic. For example, inscribing runes to your rifle to enhance your bullet to explore/freeze/poison/take control/etc or using magic to reload an multi barrel cannon, considering that PoE 1 was traditional fantasy and PoE 2 was based onin great navigations, i really was hopping for for a steampunk RPG
An Wizard actually tried to use magic to enhance his weapon on PoE 2, is not a history spoiler, just an item description
After playing an game where magic and technology are the opposite, one is the application of laws and the other is the negation(Arcanum), an steampunk PoE game sounds so epic but... PoE is dead. I loved how i can cast some spells to solve some situations on PoE 2 outside of combat. Unfortunately no spells on sea combat(will be good if your druid can manipulate the winds to make your ship faster for eg or raising an ice wall to deflect cannon shots)
I know I haven't bought PoE2, and I'm unlikely to buy it any time in the near future. Only an extreme discount that gets the price down to about five to seven dollars would entice me to buy it.
The main reason is that I am *not* into pirates and naval settings, at all. Not even a little. They lost me as a consumer when they decided to follow that trend.
Side note, I know Obsidian was in financial trouble before they crowd funded PoE 1, what was the situation like AFTER Pillars 2? Were they in a position where they didn't have a tremendous amount of room to maneuver financially? Or are they just keen on being able to worry less about the financial side and focus more on development? ( If there is such a thing ) :P
There's a whole thread on this on their forums. It now appears that PoE2 sold rather poorly, and as such it is possible OE was feeling a financial pinch again. It is my take that whereas both small and large studios can survive being indy, it is mid-sized studios like OE and inXile that have a very difficult time surviving as indy studios.
The problem is that that alot of these Kickstarter CRPGs are just flat-out crashing and burning at this point. I bought Bard's Tale IV the day it came out, and I was so disgusted with the performance issues that I refunded it within hours. I recently repurchased it at about a 1/3 the price, and despite 3 major patches, I see no real discernible difference. Yesterday, Underworld Ascendant came out. There are alot of great concepts in this game, and in many ways it's charming and well-designed, but the game appears to have been released in what looks like an alpha state. While it isn't quite in THAT category, Pathfinder: Kingmaker is also riddled with bugs, and even after at least twice weekly patches for over a month, every change-log would take 5 minutes to read at a brisk pace. Tyranny is was decently received, but is viewed as unfinished by many people.
So what is going on?? Lots of things. Stretch goals that are promised become detrimental to the core game being polished is one. Another is expectations. Another is surely the fact that unlike the games these spiritual successors are based on, people know about them 2 or 3 years in advance, have all that time to follow the development and get hyped for the product, and then are disappointed when it arrives. But what is killing these games more than anything is the state they are in upon release, which is almost always a buggy, unoptimized mess. Pillars of Eternity 2 isn't even one of the main offenders here, but it did have plenty of bugs and was certainly hurt by the shadow of Obsidian's reputation for bugs and the fact that the first game took months if not a year to get in a stable state.
And that's really becoming the story, time after time. Eventually, all these games are ending up being pretty great. But they are reaching that point only after massive amounts of patches, sometimes 6-12 months after release. And in the meantime, review scores on Steam tank and never really recover out of that "Mixed" area for the rest of their life-cycle. The only studio to avoid this fate in this Kickstarter area has been Larian, as Divinity: Original Sin 1 & 2 have been massive successes both commercially and critically.
While I agree that a lot of these recent crowdfunded games over-promised and under-delivered (e.g. BT4), I don't think PoE2 was one of them. It has received really strong reviews from critics. And just a note for @BelgarathMTH, while the games has some pirates here and there it is by no means a pirate-themed game. It is more a Polynesian-themed game. And patches have made it possible to largely bypass the naval combat stuff.
As for sales, one of the Fig investors let the cat out of the bag, that post-release sales are around 110,000 units. For the Fig investors, the game needed to sell around 540,000 units at $50 for them to just break even. Since this guy revealed this info, others have come forward to confirm the overall numbers, give or take.
And btw, although initially Tyranny did not sell well, there has subsequently been a surge and it is now supposedly at around 500,000 units sold and therefore has made some money for OE and Paradox.
Games have always been a buggy mess and it isn’t just indie games. I just finished RDR2 and it had a handful of issues and bugs from cut scenes not firing, to pathing issues in cutscenes.
The larger the game, the more issues that will creep into the finished product. This is increased higher for PC releases as the game has to be designed for different operating systems.
I honestly think PC gaming is dying again and it has to do with the marketplace. As good as Steam and GoG have been at reviving gaming, they are now slowly killing it. GoG with its pricing and Steam with its over saturation.
With GoG people expect deals and will not pay full price for games. They tend to more savvy, while at the same time extremely critical of companies.
Steam has an over saturated market with a lot of crap. Consumers there tend to wait for reviews to come out on a product (which only happens if a game is hyped properly enough) and then, if there is enough of a positive vibe around the game they’ll buy it but probably wait for a sale.
If a game is single player only, (like many of the cRPGs are) consumers know they aren’t missing anything by waiting. Companies need to stop discounting thier games that early - it is cutting into there bottom line especially if they don’t use other money generating streams like micro transactions.
I know I haven't bought PoE2, and I'm unlikely to buy it any time in the near future. Only an extreme discount that gets the price down to about five to seven dollars would entice me to buy it.
The main reason is that I am *not* into pirates and naval settings, at all. Not even a little. They lost me as a consumer when they decided to follow that trend.
I understand this point but will try make your change your mind
Piking the medieval setting for example, the life of a common/average farmer is not that interesting, but if you add a lot of mythical creatures and have an interesting lore about an civil war exploding by nobles trying to take over an king who wanna revoke the nobility, it can be interesting.
The same happens with the greater navigation, "explore" the new world where the natives have only relative weak bows to hunt small animals and fight other "naked" native tribes that can't pierce your breastplate while you have cavalry and pikes, is completely different than fight natives when they have magic. There are a lot of variety in architecture, and a vast diverse world to explore.
Other problems is that many "pirate" adventures in "new world" tends to focus too much on Carib, so become pretty boring see the same tropical island 24/7, but PoE 2 mainly in a DLC apparently realized that they can pick inspiration for other parts of the "new world" irl. The Beast of Winter occurs in a place pretty similar to Patagonia(southernmost part of deadfire archipelago/closest part of the south pole irl)
I honestly think PC gaming is dying again and it has to do with the marketplace. As good as Steam and GoG have been at reviving gaming, they are now slowly killing it. GoG with its pricing and Steam with its over saturation.
Well, according to a very high-up person (Matt Booty) in Microsoft Studios in interviews post OE and inXile acquisition, MS's strategy now is to strengthen PC gaming because they see this as their strength and advantage relative to consoles where they admit they're behind both PS4 and Switch. He specifically says MS wants to strengthen the Windows Store, Game Pass and PC gaming. And OE's Sawyer has said in a post that in their discussions with MS, MS was keenly interested in generating RPG bundles within Game Pass for both PC and XBox. MS bought OE and inXile precisely because of their expertise in making RPGs for the PC.
Ugh, I still haven't been able to play kingmaker in linux since I'm missing music and a ton of sounds. The EE of NWN had the same issue but eventually got fixed. Sucks, because that's my main OS where I do everything else, including my work.
I honestly think PC gaming is dying again and it has to do with the marketplace. As good as Steam and GoG have been at reviving gaming, they are now slowly killing it. GoG with its pricing and Steam with its over saturation.
Well, according to a very high-up person (Matt Booty) in Microsoft Studios in interviews post OE and inXile acquisition, MS's strategy now is to strengthen PC gaming because they see this as their strength and advantage relative to consoles where they admit they're behind both PS4 and Switch. He specifically says MS wants to strengthen the Windows Store, Game Pass and PC gaming. And OE's Sawyer has said in a post that in their discussions with MS, MS was keenly interested in generating RPG bundles within Game Pass for both PC and XBox. MS bought OE and inXile precisely because of their expertise in making RPGs for the PC.
This on theory, M$ owns rare, rare was famous by making a lot of iconic console platformers and.... Took years from then to launch Sea of Thieves an pretty boring game...
Ugh, I still haven't been able to play kingmaker in linux since I'm missing music and a ton of sounds. The EE of NWN had the same issue but eventually got fixed. Sucks, because that's my main OS where I do everything else, including my work.
Looks pretty poor to me, compared to PoE1's 1M-2M Steam owners.
Didn't Steam break Steamspy recently? I've seen people online talk about how it doesn't work anymore. Also, assuming they are correct, that is ONLY the Steam numbers.
Looks pretty poor to me, compared to PoE1's 1M-2M Steam owners.
Didn't Steam break Steamspy recently? I've seen people online talk about how it doesn't work anymore. Also, assuming they are correct, that is ONLY the Steam numbers.
Most PC gamers play on STEAM, if there are 200k unity sold, probably not more than 300k purchased the game.
It's absolutely nuts to me that Tyranny has supposedly sold 5x more units than Pillars 2, even though it has been out for much longer. If Pillars is a niche game, Tyranny is an even MORE niche game using the same engine and real-time with pause combat, and moreover, has an absolutely byzantine opening that can takes upwards of a half-hour to complete that consists of nothing but choose-your-own adventure diplomatic choices. Not to mention you are flat-out evil, which is a great concept, but not traditionally something that has ever translated into mass popularity.
I know I haven't bought PoE2, and I'm unlikely to buy it any time in the near future. Only an extreme discount that gets the price down to about five to seven dollars would entice me to buy it.
The main reason is that I am *not* into pirates and naval settings, at all. Not even a little. They lost me as a consumer when they decided to follow that trend.
your gonna be waiting a really long time then. i'm still waiting for tyranny to go under 15 bucks.
It's absolutely nuts to me that Tyranny has supposedly sold 5x more units than Pillars 2, even though it has been out for much longer. If Pillars is a niche game, Tyranny is an even MORE niche game using the same engine and real-time with pause combat, and moreover, has an absolutely byzantine opening that can takes upwards of a half-hour to complete that consists of nothing but choose-your-own adventure diplomatic choices. Not to mention you are flat-out evil, which is a great concept, but not traditionally something that has ever translated into mass popularity.
Probably a lot of people don't like the idea of a fantasy game during "Age of Discovery" but PoE 2 did an AMAZING job on it. I loved the ship customization, much better than the stronghold """customization"""" on PoE 1 and even if you don't like ship combat, you can just charge into enemy ship and fight "normally", also there are a lot of building diversity and diversity on enemies on the game.
Not mention class specialization and multiclassing, an playtrought with an evoker and a generalist wizard are completely different.
About being a niche game, i strongly disagree. PoE was funded in one day on kickstarter ( https://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/169398-Pillars-of-Eternity-II-Deadfire-Funded-in-One-Day ) The problem is that the standards are so low that any RTS game is viewed as a niche game and any non "press A for awesome" RPG is viewed as a niche game. NWN, BG, IWD, are all mainstream pc games on 2000's.
Looks pretty poor to me, compared to PoE1's 1M-2M Steam owners.
Didn't Steam break Steamspy recently? I've seen people online talk about how it doesn't work anymore. Also, assuming they are correct, that is ONLY the Steam numbers.
It kinda did, but its author said he was experimenting with new algorithms, and they've mostly proven accurate enough. In any case, if it shows about 80%-90% drop in sales compared to previous title, I'd be inclined to assume the ratio is similar across all platforms they're selling it on.
I know I haven't bought PoE2, and I'm unlikely to buy it any time in the near future. Only an extreme discount that gets the price down to about five to seven dollars would entice me to buy it.
The main reason is that I am *not* into pirates and naval settings, at all. Not even a little. They lost me as a consumer when they decided to follow that trend.
your gonna be waiting a really long time then. i'm still waiting for tyranny to go under 15 bucks.
I think they gave it away on Twitch Prime about a month back. At the very least, all these games have been in many Humble bundles at this point, so there are bargain basement-priced keys all over the place for all these games. I won't go further into it because I don't know what the rules are in regards to the actual legality of second-hand Steam keys that haven't yet been redeemed, but my general assumption would be that someone at some point got that key by paying money for it, and if it hasn't been assigned to an actual account yet, a second-hand market of them is only going to drive down the price because so many of these games end up in bundles after 6-12 months, and many people get those bundles despite having no use for some of the games. The only question is if you actually trust the websites.
Former Rare Composer: ‘Microsoft Has Completely Ruined Rare’
mynintendonews
Rare, once a Nintendo second-party developer, is a subsidiary of Microsoft. While working with Nintendo, Rare developed many memorable video games that include Banjo-Kazooie, Donkey Kong Country and Conker’s Bad Fur Day. Former Rare composer Grant Kirkhope is saddened by the current state of Rare and claims that “it’s Microsoft’s fault.” Kirhope goes on and says, Microsoft has “completely ruined that company [Rare], and it makes me cry every day of my life.”
MS claims to want to support Linux, but it has yet to be seen. Skype for Linux still doesn't support the business features of the lync garbage. To me it seems like the whole WSL thing is MS admitting their CLI sucks. The best description of power shell I've heard, was that it's like somebody once saw somebody working in bash, and they tried to copy it, but they had no idea of the philosophy and thinking behind what actually made it work so well.
I mean, I like being a Internet naysayer as much as anybody, but the side of me with reasonable to loooow expectations can't really see these buyouts as wholly positive things. I just picture the scenario being "Alright, here's a whole new corporate culture for the both of you! We want you to all work together and have the game ready in X months. Make it perfect!"
I mean, I like being a Internet naysayer as much as anybody, but the side of me with reasonable to loooow expectations can't really see these buyouts as wholly positive things. I just picture the scenario being "Alright, here's a whole new corporate culture for the both of you! We want you to all work together and have the game ready in X months. Make it perfect!"
Probably M$ will force then to hire a Teletubbies to "evaluate" the "complexity" of the game, if is too complex for the Teletubbies, the game must be streamlined or they are fired.
I know I haven't bought PoE2, and I'm unlikely to buy it any time in the near future. Only an extreme discount that gets the price down to about five to seven dollars would entice me to buy it.
The main reason is that I am *not* into pirates and naval settings, at all. Not even a little. They lost me as a consumer when they decided to follow that trend.
your gonna be waiting a really long time then. i'm still waiting for tyranny to go under 15 bucks.
I think they gave it away on Twitch Prime about a month back. At the very least, all these games have been in many Humble bundles at this point, so there are bargain basement-priced keys all over the place for all these games. I won't go further into it because I don't know what the rules are in regards to the actual legality of second-hand Steam keys that haven't yet been redeemed, but my general assumption would be that someone at some point got that key by paying money for it, and if it hasn't been assigned to an actual account yet, a second-hand market of them is only going to drive down the price because so many of these games end up in bundles after 6-12 months, and many people get those bundles despite having no use for some of the games. The only question is if you actually trust the websites.
well it already went from a 44 doller game to 30 so it may be getting a better discount during the next steam winter sale so i may pick it up then.
I mean, I like being a Internet naysayer as much as anybody, but the side of me with reasonable to loooow expectations can't really see these buyouts as wholly positive things. I just picture the scenario being "Alright, here's a whole new corporate culture for the both of you! We want you to all work together and have the game ready in X months. Make it perfect!"
Probably M$ will force then to hire a Teletubbies to "evaluate" the "complexity" of the game, if is too complex for the Teletubbies, the game must be streamlined or they are fired.
a part of me kinda wishes obsidian did go under prior to pillars. they would be like Troika and ended on a high note [ new vegas for obsidian bloodlines for Troika.] instead of being forced to make games not as good as what they did in the past like bioware post 2012.
My favorite Obsidian game was Fallout New Vegas. No other game managed to "mix" RPG and FPS that well and i love both genres. I don't know why they din't tried to make another similar game, not necessarily on fallout universe, to be honest i an looking to see if freeman guerrilla warfare worth the cost, is a RPG/FPS/RTS mix
@megamike15 What are you talking about? Pillars is the best game they've put out since KotoR2.
i have not touched poe since i finished it two years ago as i just never feel like replaying it. and have no real interest in deadfire at this time. really the only post new vegas game of theirs i even want to play at this point is tyranny.
I didn't really care for PoE, but I had a lot of fun with the second one. I was on the fence about picking it up, but am glad I did.
Tyranny was definitely more up my alley, it felt a lot more like a game from the company that made New Vegas, a dark world filled with choice and consequence. It also was not 100% evil. There is a good path, but it's still got a lot of hard decisions and it's impossible to save everybody. I had a lot of fun with my former pit fighter named Spartacus liberating the province. I got to start so many conversations with "I am Spartacus." I also found the unique setting to be very refreshing, especially the technology level being early iron age.
Comments
I think Tyranny sold pretty poorly, as well. A shame since I loved that game. I definitely rate it better than either of the Pillars games.
Not mention, Cyberpunk 2077 will be launched and compete in the same genre/same theme with CD projekt red is a suicide... If both companies have the same futuristic sci-fi game, everyone will play first from CD projekt red and wait until the sci-fi game from Obsidian in at massive discount, this on the best case scenario. Anyway, any kickstarter Obsidian project can raise enouth money for then to try something "new"; if they don't have to face a direct concorrency from the most beloved company.
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And is sad how PoE 2 sold porly despite being much better than the first one. Keep in mind that you can't just multiply $49.99 for 200k and have the profits of Obsidian, steam take around 30%, and some regions like South America, Eastern Europe, etc have diferential prices to combat piracy in this regions.
I like to joke that the American grenade was based off a baseball, since most Americans knew how to throw a baseball. The German grenade was based off a bottle. What does that tell you about Germans? FNV was totally based off old west, though, so a huge amount of weapons are cowboy style stuff. Not everything, mind you, but quite a lot. I do dig me some cowboy style shooting, though.
for example an neon "stealth" "railgun" rifle who fires projectile at slower speed than airsoft guns...
This from hunt : showdown (note that they added some "fantasy elements")
Is much more immersive than this
Or this
To be fair, one fantasy game that have cool and functional looking weapons is FF VII Dirge of Cerberus, i don't know if a tri barrel revolver will be practical, but considering that Volley gun was useful since 15th century and you can have a multi barrel cannon on your ship on PoE 2, i don't have any problems with this guns.
An steampunk rpg sounds epic. For example, inscribing runes to your rifle to enhance your bullet to explore/freeze/poison/take control/etc or using magic to reload an multi barrel cannon, considering that PoE 1 was traditional fantasy and PoE 2 was based onin great navigations, i really was hopping for for a steampunk RPG
An Wizard actually tried to use magic to enhance his weapon on PoE 2, is not a history spoiler, just an item description
After playing an game where magic and technology are the opposite, one is the application of laws and the other is the negation(Arcanum), an steampunk PoE game sounds so epic but... PoE is dead. I loved how i can cast some spells to solve some situations on PoE 2 outside of combat. Unfortunately no spells on sea combat(will be good if your druid can manipulate the winds to make your ship faster for eg or raising an ice wall to deflect cannon shots)
The main reason is that I am *not* into pirates and naval settings, at all. Not even a little. They lost me as a consumer when they decided to follow that trend.
The problem is that that alot of these Kickstarter CRPGs are just flat-out crashing and burning at this point. I bought Bard's Tale IV the day it came out, and I was so disgusted with the performance issues that I refunded it within hours. I recently repurchased it at about a 1/3 the price, and despite 3 major patches, I see no real discernible difference. Yesterday, Underworld Ascendant came out. There are alot of great concepts in this game, and in many ways it's charming and well-designed, but the game appears to have been released in what looks like an alpha state. While it isn't quite in THAT category, Pathfinder: Kingmaker is also riddled with bugs, and even after at least twice weekly patches for over a month, every change-log would take 5 minutes to read at a brisk pace. Tyranny is was decently received, but is viewed as unfinished by many people.
So what is going on?? Lots of things. Stretch goals that are promised become detrimental to the core game being polished is one. Another is expectations. Another is surely the fact that unlike the games these spiritual successors are based on, people know about them 2 or 3 years in advance, have all that time to follow the development and get hyped for the product, and then are disappointed when it arrives. But what is killing these games more than anything is the state they are in upon release, which is almost always a buggy, unoptimized mess. Pillars of Eternity 2 isn't even one of the main offenders here, but it did have plenty of bugs and was certainly hurt by the shadow of Obsidian's reputation for bugs and the fact that the first game took months if not a year to get in a stable state.
And that's really becoming the story, time after time. Eventually, all these games are ending up being pretty great. But they are reaching that point only after massive amounts of patches, sometimes 6-12 months after release. And in the meantime, review scores on Steam tank and never really recover out of that "Mixed" area for the rest of their life-cycle. The only studio to avoid this fate in this Kickstarter area has been Larian, as Divinity: Original Sin 1 & 2 have been massive successes both commercially and critically.
As for sales, one of the Fig investors let the cat out of the bag, that post-release sales are around 110,000 units. For the Fig investors, the game needed to sell around 540,000 units at $50 for them to just break even. Since this guy revealed this info, others have come forward to confirm the overall numbers, give or take.
And btw, although initially Tyranny did not sell well, there has subsequently been a surge and it is now supposedly at around 500,000 units sold and therefore has made some money for OE and Paradox.
The larger the game, the more issues that will creep into the finished product. This is increased higher for PC releases as the game has to be designed for different operating systems.
I honestly think PC gaming is dying again and it has to do with the marketplace. As good as Steam and GoG have been at reviving gaming, they are now slowly killing it. GoG with its pricing and Steam with its over saturation.
With GoG people expect deals and will not pay full price for games. They tend to more savvy, while at the same time extremely critical of companies.
Steam has an over saturated market with a lot of crap. Consumers there tend to wait for reviews to come out on a product (which only happens if a game is hyped properly enough) and then, if there is enough of a positive vibe around the game they’ll buy it but probably wait for a sale.
If a game is single player only, (like many of the cRPGs are) consumers know they aren’t missing anything by waiting. Companies need to stop discounting thier games that early - it is cutting into there bottom line especially if they don’t use other money generating streams like micro transactions.
Piking the medieval setting for example, the life of a common/average farmer is not that interesting, but if you add a lot of mythical creatures and have an interesting lore about an civil war exploding by nobles trying to take over an king who wanna revoke the nobility, it can be interesting.
The same happens with the greater navigation, "explore" the new world where the natives have only relative weak bows to hunt small animals and fight other "naked" native tribes that can't pierce your breastplate while you have cavalry and pikes, is completely different than fight natives when they have magic. There are a lot of variety in architecture, and a vast diverse world to explore.
Other problems is that many "pirate" adventures in "new world" tends to focus too much on Carib, so become pretty boring see the same tropical island 24/7, but PoE 2 mainly in a DLC apparently realized that they can pick inspiration for other parts of the "new world" irl. The Beast of Winter occurs in a place pretty similar to Patagonia(southernmost part of deadfire archipelago/closest part of the south pole irl)
Not mention class specialization and multiclassing, an playtrought with an evoker and a generalist wizard are completely different.
About being a niche game, i strongly disagree. PoE was funded in one day on kickstarter ( https://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/169398-Pillars-of-Eternity-II-Deadfire-Funded-in-One-Day ) The problem is that the standards are so low that any RTS game is viewed as a niche game and any non "press A for awesome" RPG is viewed as a niche game. NWN, BG, IWD, are all mainstream pc games on 2000's.
Rare, once a Nintendo second-party developer, is a subsidiary of Microsoft. While working with Nintendo, Rare developed many memorable video games that include Banjo-Kazooie, Donkey Kong Country and Conker’s Bad Fur Day. Former Rare composer Grant Kirkhope is saddened by the current state of Rare and claims that “it’s Microsoft’s fault.” Kirhope goes on and says, Microsoft has “completely ruined that company [Rare], and it makes me cry every day of my life.”
source > https://mynintendonews.com/2012/07/06/former-rare-composer-microsoft-has-completely-ruined-rare/
other article https://www.gonintendo.com/?mode=viewstory&id=180789
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Obsidian = Rare 2.0
I an sure that M$ will force then to work on mobile, generic mmo and streamlined ""rpgs"".
Probably M$ will force then to hire a Teletubbies to "evaluate" the "complexity" of the game, if is too complex for the Teletubbies, the game must be streamlined or they are fired.
Tyranny was definitely more up my alley, it felt a lot more like a game from the company that made New Vegas, a dark world filled with choice and consequence. It also was not 100% evil. There is a good path, but it's still got a lot of hard decisions and it's impossible to save everybody. I had a lot of fun with my former pit fighter named Spartacus liberating the province. I got to start so many conversations with "I am Spartacus." I also found the unique setting to be very refreshing, especially the technology level being early iron age.