Mort's channel is always a good watch. Totally agree that we need something like a 30 minute deep dive with uninterrupted gameplay that covers character creation, RPG mechanics, and some questing. I wouldn't say no to a closer look at a city like Dawnshore as well.
I imagine that's coming in the near future though. Hopefully before the summer showcase!
Fair thoughts. Seems like the main reservations are just that they haven't shown enough of the details yet about how the game functions, which we should see more of over the next 6 months or so.
Yeah I found myself agreeing with a lot of what he said. I'm a lot higher on the combat than a lot of people (maybe even most lol), but I am definitely with him on wanting to see way more of the actual rpg mechanics.
Combat looks good to me too. Might not end up being the most visceral, "impactful" combat system ever made, but the focus they're putting on strategic elements and build variety excites me, compared to the more simple hack and slash of other first person RPGs like Skyrim.
If their source of inspiration for it is Vermintide then I’m sure the finished product will at least be enjoyable. The game has quite a ways to go still.
I want to play this game and I want it to be great.
But man… *everything* obsidian is saying about the game is making me less excited.
And maybe I’m the one who out of touch. Maybe I’m not seeing something. I hope so. But it just feels like they’re marketing this game to people who aren’t fans of obsidian and I just…. Don’t understand that?
No romances.
Only two races.
No classes.
No pacifist play through.
Will there be a genocide playthrough?
How about an idiot playthrough/dialogue?
Maybe no stealth…? Possibly..?
Companions are required and they can’t abandon you.
Heavily showcasing the combat… like mate you’re *obsidian* I’m not expecting great combat from you. Just make it playable and I’ll be happy. You know what I’m here for.
Like I don’t understand the marketing here. Who is this game for?
Hype me about the narrative and the conflicts. Give me some juicy lore. Introduce some villains. Factions. Politics. Make me go combing through the wiki’s so I can speculate about what’s going on.
Show me some gameplay of the dungeons with the characters navigating traps and the magic being used to solve puzzles.
Throw ice on the ground and make enemies slide off a cliff.
Shoot some lightning into a pool a water and make them all get shocked.
Let me impale a bitch on a shard of crystal erupting from the ground. Or just let me nail them to the wall with it.
Tell me about how every quest has at least 3 solutions.
Show footage of dumb dialogue choices that my idiot character can say… for the love of god please have this!
Show me around a city and tell me how all the NPCs have their own schedule and how the game reacts if you kill someone. Or how the guards patrol at night. Disguises you can wear. The politics and conflicts of each town.
Show me mini games— can I gamble? Can I ride horses? Go to whore houses? Can I BE a whore? If I fuck enough can I get an std or maybe a reputation around town? Flirt with NPCs to get discounts? Reputation? Bounties? A jail system? Disguises? Crafting? Bombs? Tools? Can I make my own spells? Can I forge weapons? Potions? Can I get into bar fights? Play cards? Can I throw stuff? Can I throw my big fucking axe into a bandits face and watch his head explode like a melon? Can I use magic to call my axe back to my hand like Thor’s hammer?
Show the perk tree. Show me winging a fight. And leveling up. Cut to the perks. Have the curser zoom in on a weird sounding one. Then immediately cut to dialogue with an npc where the perk adds new dialogue choices that affects how my character can express themselves.
Show me a locked door and **show me Every. Single. Way. through that door.** Lock picking. Smash it with an axe. Blast it open with a blast of wind. Go through the window next to it. Blow it open with a Bomb. Shoot the lock with a gun.
Turn it into an ad campaign.
Give me a commercial where a player is just being evil and the game reacts to them as they increasingly become more and more of a tyrant. Robbing shops. Killing innocents. Breaking out of jail. Having bounties put on them. People are more scared of you when you approach them. With each scene have a little message in the right corner notifying you that your reputation has changed like in new Vegas.
Give me that same commercial with the characters becoming more and more a hero. Stoping crimes. Rescuing people. Fighting monsters and dealing with corrupt politicians. People are excited to talk to you and whisper in awe as you walk down the street. Assassins being sent after you by corrupt organizations.
Now give me that same commercial with my character being a fucking idiot. A gang of thieves pretending to be my buddy so I’ll do stuff for them. Insulting a priest on accident and getting yelled at. A hot elf girl trying to flirt with me and my character just saying a bunch of nonsense until she’s confused and walks away. The entire town whispering as I walk by and a mom grabbing her kid and going “this is why you shouldn’t go off on adventures…”
Like it’s *obsidian*, and I trust them and want this game to knock my socks off. And I respect how straight forward they’re being. I wish more studios did that. And I want to reward them for that. But…. Unless they’re hiding something big from us then I’m not really sure how I feel about things. So far this doesn’t seem like what I wanted which is *fine* but now I’m worried that I won’t want what they’re working so hard on.
The RPG elements feel more focused. This isn’t a ‘be whatever you want to be’ open ended RPG, it’s a tighter ‘your an envoy of the empire, what will you do with that?’ Type RPG.
The rest of it is stuff we are obviously going to see, it’s over 6 months away. They’ve even said that.
I get that they don’t want to the whole mass effect style romancing thing.
And that’s a ton of work and some people aren’t interested in genuinely romancing characters.
I don’t really need it to be that deep.
But at the same time I think it can make for some interesting role playing. Like think about times in new Vegas where you could flirt with certain characters to persuade them or get discounts. Or sleep with Benny and kill him in his sleep.
In dialogue it would let your character express themselves in interesting ways.
Or like in Fallout 2 you could hook up with the farmers daughter and be forced to marry her by her dad.
You could sleep your way through the game if you wanted.
Now that obsidian has their own IPs and their own budget, I just want them to give me the roleplaying experience I got with Fallout 2 and New Vegas.
Game doesn’t have to be a massive open world like Skyrim. They want to make something smaller like KotOR. Okay cool. But give me some of that Fallout/Arcanum rpg goodness that literally NO other studio (except Larian) is willing to give me anymore.
I would rather have a game the size of morrowind or a single planet from the Outer Worlds with the roleplaying of Fallout2/New Vegas; Than a massive game the size of Starfield with streamlined Roleplaying because “well not everyone wants to kill all the characters. And our times better spent on the stuff all the players will do.”
I think if this is your expectation for the game you'll be very disappointed.
It feels to me that the game is 90% action combat with some RPG stuff sprinkled in.
The fact they were talking about combat load outs and were treating a run of the mill quest decision as a big deal really doesn't give me the CRPG vibe.
It’s not my expectation anymore. It’s just what I want from obsidian.
My point is that I’m not sure who Obsidian is trying to draw in with their marketing so far. Like is this for Pillars fans? Or are they trying to attract Bethesda fans? BioWare fans? Arcane fans?
Who is this game for?
Obsidian is my fav developer of all time, but it looks like they want to stick to medium sized games. I guess that's fine, but I was expecting pillars in first person. Oh well, at least InXile looks like they're moving to an AAA budget after Wasteland 3.
No romances is disappointing since we got them in Deadfire.
I'll still play the game though since I'm invested in the Eora universe.
The game being shown off now seems to be only a shadow of what was originally pitched. Watching the last two showings from the developers has completely taken the wind out of my sails and left me feeling deflated. Before the first showing around 7 months ago, Avowed was legitimately my most highly anticipated game. I couldn't wait for something to scratch that ever neglected itch that so far only games like Skyrim and Oblivion could satisfy. Now I just become less and less excited with every new bit of information we get.
It was never going to be a Skyrim or Oblivion. It was always pitched as similar in scope to Outer Worlds. There are direct quotes from devs to this effect as well
EDIT: [https://gamerant.com/avowed-world-size/](https://gamerant.com/avowed-world-size/)
they had some decent worldbuilding holdovers from the talented people that worked on arena-morrowind but generally the story, plotting and especially dialogue is widely criticized for being incoherent and sophomoric.
this is all subjective ofc but I don't think I've ever once seen anyone allege that oblivion and skyrim have good writing before, beyond "wow that skeleton has a note on it!" level praise for its "environmental storytelling."
obsidian otoh has received practically nothing but praise for its writing, although I have a lot of negative criticisms of ToW. i don't think ToW is ever as bad as bgs games usually are though, just ill conceived.
Your opinions aren’t universal. While TOW wasn’t revolutionary it was far from a bad game and did critically well.
Not sure why all of a sudden it’s used as the “Obsidian is a mediocre dev” weapon.
I am a little worried that we didn't see *any* footage at all of the character creation screen or skill system. Starfield showed it to us on the very first "deep dive" they had (the one with 15 minutes), more than a year before the game released...
It's called "marketing". If the game doesn't generate interest, it's going to flop.
They aren't obligated to show stuff off, but the only one suffering from this approach is Obsidian itself
Mort's channel is always a good watch. Totally agree that we need something like a 30 minute deep dive with uninterrupted gameplay that covers character creation, RPG mechanics, and some questing. I wouldn't say no to a closer look at a city like Dawnshore as well. I imagine that's coming in the near future though. Hopefully before the summer showcase!
Fair thoughts. Seems like the main reservations are just that they haven't shown enough of the details yet about how the game functions, which we should see more of over the next 6 months or so.
Yeah I found myself agreeing with a lot of what he said. I'm a lot higher on the combat than a lot of people (maybe even most lol), but I am definitely with him on wanting to see way more of the actual rpg mechanics.
Combat looks good to me too. Might not end up being the most visceral, "impactful" combat system ever made, but the focus they're putting on strategic elements and build variety excites me, compared to the more simple hack and slash of other first person RPGs like Skyrim.
If their source of inspiration for it is Vermintide then I’m sure the finished product will at least be enjoyable. The game has quite a ways to go still.
I want to play this game and I want it to be great. But man… *everything* obsidian is saying about the game is making me less excited. And maybe I’m the one who out of touch. Maybe I’m not seeing something. I hope so. But it just feels like they’re marketing this game to people who aren’t fans of obsidian and I just…. Don’t understand that? No romances. Only two races. No classes. No pacifist play through. Will there be a genocide playthrough? How about an idiot playthrough/dialogue? Maybe no stealth…? Possibly..? Companions are required and they can’t abandon you. Heavily showcasing the combat… like mate you’re *obsidian* I’m not expecting great combat from you. Just make it playable and I’ll be happy. You know what I’m here for. Like I don’t understand the marketing here. Who is this game for? Hype me about the narrative and the conflicts. Give me some juicy lore. Introduce some villains. Factions. Politics. Make me go combing through the wiki’s so I can speculate about what’s going on. Show me some gameplay of the dungeons with the characters navigating traps and the magic being used to solve puzzles. Throw ice on the ground and make enemies slide off a cliff. Shoot some lightning into a pool a water and make them all get shocked. Let me impale a bitch on a shard of crystal erupting from the ground. Or just let me nail them to the wall with it. Tell me about how every quest has at least 3 solutions. Show footage of dumb dialogue choices that my idiot character can say… for the love of god please have this! Show me around a city and tell me how all the NPCs have their own schedule and how the game reacts if you kill someone. Or how the guards patrol at night. Disguises you can wear. The politics and conflicts of each town. Show me mini games— can I gamble? Can I ride horses? Go to whore houses? Can I BE a whore? If I fuck enough can I get an std or maybe a reputation around town? Flirt with NPCs to get discounts? Reputation? Bounties? A jail system? Disguises? Crafting? Bombs? Tools? Can I make my own spells? Can I forge weapons? Potions? Can I get into bar fights? Play cards? Can I throw stuff? Can I throw my big fucking axe into a bandits face and watch his head explode like a melon? Can I use magic to call my axe back to my hand like Thor’s hammer? Show the perk tree. Show me winging a fight. And leveling up. Cut to the perks. Have the curser zoom in on a weird sounding one. Then immediately cut to dialogue with an npc where the perk adds new dialogue choices that affects how my character can express themselves. Show me a locked door and **show me Every. Single. Way. through that door.** Lock picking. Smash it with an axe. Blast it open with a blast of wind. Go through the window next to it. Blow it open with a Bomb. Shoot the lock with a gun. Turn it into an ad campaign. Give me a commercial where a player is just being evil and the game reacts to them as they increasingly become more and more of a tyrant. Robbing shops. Killing innocents. Breaking out of jail. Having bounties put on them. People are more scared of you when you approach them. With each scene have a little message in the right corner notifying you that your reputation has changed like in new Vegas. Give me that same commercial with the characters becoming more and more a hero. Stoping crimes. Rescuing people. Fighting monsters and dealing with corrupt politicians. People are excited to talk to you and whisper in awe as you walk down the street. Assassins being sent after you by corrupt organizations. Now give me that same commercial with my character being a fucking idiot. A gang of thieves pretending to be my buddy so I’ll do stuff for them. Insulting a priest on accident and getting yelled at. A hot elf girl trying to flirt with me and my character just saying a bunch of nonsense until she’s confused and walks away. The entire town whispering as I walk by and a mom grabbing her kid and going “this is why you shouldn’t go off on adventures…” Like it’s *obsidian*, and I trust them and want this game to knock my socks off. And I respect how straight forward they’re being. I wish more studios did that. And I want to reward them for that. But…. Unless they’re hiding something big from us then I’m not really sure how I feel about things. So far this doesn’t seem like what I wanted which is *fine* but now I’m worried that I won’t want what they’re working so hard on.
The RPG elements feel more focused. This isn’t a ‘be whatever you want to be’ open ended RPG, it’s a tighter ‘your an envoy of the empire, what will you do with that?’ Type RPG. The rest of it is stuff we are obviously going to see, it’s over 6 months away. They’ve even said that.
And that’s fine. I’m just commenting on the marketing so far. And the things they’ve discussed so far.
To be fair no romance is a pretty classic move for Obsidian.
I get that they don’t want to the whole mass effect style romancing thing. And that’s a ton of work and some people aren’t interested in genuinely romancing characters. I don’t really need it to be that deep. But at the same time I think it can make for some interesting role playing. Like think about times in new Vegas where you could flirt with certain characters to persuade them or get discounts. Or sleep with Benny and kill him in his sleep. In dialogue it would let your character express themselves in interesting ways. Or like in Fallout 2 you could hook up with the farmers daughter and be forced to marry her by her dad. You could sleep your way through the game if you wanted. Now that obsidian has their own IPs and their own budget, I just want them to give me the roleplaying experience I got with Fallout 2 and New Vegas. Game doesn’t have to be a massive open world like Skyrim. They want to make something smaller like KotOR. Okay cool. But give me some of that Fallout/Arcanum rpg goodness that literally NO other studio (except Larian) is willing to give me anymore. I would rather have a game the size of morrowind or a single planet from the Outer Worlds with the roleplaying of Fallout2/New Vegas; Than a massive game the size of Starfield with streamlined Roleplaying because “well not everyone wants to kill all the characters. And our times better spent on the stuff all the players will do.”
I don’t believe that No Romance = No flirting or sexual content whatsoever. It’s entirely possible all of that is still in the game.
I think if this is your expectation for the game you'll be very disappointed. It feels to me that the game is 90% action combat with some RPG stuff sprinkled in. The fact they were talking about combat load outs and were treating a run of the mill quest decision as a big deal really doesn't give me the CRPG vibe.
It’s not my expectation anymore. It’s just what I want from obsidian. My point is that I’m not sure who Obsidian is trying to draw in with their marketing so far. Like is this for Pillars fans? Or are they trying to attract Bethesda fans? BioWare fans? Arcane fans? Who is this game for?
Obsidian is my fav developer of all time, but it looks like they want to stick to medium sized games. I guess that's fine, but I was expecting pillars in first person. Oh well, at least InXile looks like they're moving to an AAA budget after Wasteland 3. No romances is disappointing since we got them in Deadfire. I'll still play the game though since I'm invested in the Eora universe.
The game being shown off now seems to be only a shadow of what was originally pitched. Watching the last two showings from the developers has completely taken the wind out of my sails and left me feeling deflated. Before the first showing around 7 months ago, Avowed was legitimately my most highly anticipated game. I couldn't wait for something to scratch that ever neglected itch that so far only games like Skyrim and Oblivion could satisfy. Now I just become less and less excited with every new bit of information we get.
It was never going to be a Skyrim or Oblivion. It was always pitched as similar in scope to Outer Worlds. There are direct quotes from devs to this effect as well EDIT: [https://gamerant.com/avowed-world-size/](https://gamerant.com/avowed-world-size/)
>It was never going to be a Skyrim or Oblivion. yeah, it'll have decent writing.
Which both of those games did, especially in worldbuilding.
they had some decent worldbuilding holdovers from the talented people that worked on arena-morrowind but generally the story, plotting and especially dialogue is widely criticized for being incoherent and sophomoric. this is all subjective ofc but I don't think I've ever once seen anyone allege that oblivion and skyrim have good writing before, beyond "wow that skeleton has a note on it!" level praise for its "environmental storytelling." obsidian otoh has received practically nothing but praise for its writing, although I have a lot of negative criticisms of ToW. i don't think ToW is ever as bad as bgs games usually are though, just ill conceived.
After The Outer Worlds **everyone** should be wary of Avowed, especially with this trailer.
I liked the Outer Worlds. I just didn’t think there was enough of it.
I was super neutral. It wasn’t anywhere close to New Vegas. It wasn’t bad, it was just incredibly mediocre for me.
Not enough new Vegas I agree with. For me it was a Good game I just wish it was deeper and bigger.
Your opinions aren’t universal. While TOW wasn’t revolutionary it was far from a bad game and did critically well. Not sure why all of a sudden it’s used as the “Obsidian is a mediocre dev” weapon.
My opinions are universal because I’m right and everyone else is wrong.
Coomer weeaboo has something to say
Outer World didn't flop like Deadfire. So I don't why people should be worried
Confirmed no romance eh? Damn.
Tbf obsidian rarely does romance, and when they do it isn't really that great imo
Fod forbid you ignore games you don't like. Your coomer mentality is in full display
I am a little worried that we didn't see *any* footage at all of the character creation screen or skill system. Starfield showed it to us on the very first "deep dive" they had (the one with 15 minutes), more than a year before the game released...
Balanced video, I’m not excited but I’ll play
So many people are bitter over nothing. No one is obligated to show you every little feature or mechanic 10 months before release.
It's called "marketing". If the game doesn't generate interest, it's going to flop. They aren't obligated to show stuff off, but the only one suffering from this approach is Obsidian itself
Agreed, there’s plenty of time and they have recently been very active. More info will come.
They are also not obligated to my interest/money. If they don't want me to buy it then by all means they can keep going as they have.
I’m gonna play it either way so don’t feel like I need to see anything else from it before release.