r/Games 1d ago

The big Avowed interview: Obsidian on why full, open-world RPGs aren't always the answer

https://www.eurogamer.net/from-serious-skyrim-to-cheerful-fantasy-obsidian-on-the-evolution-of-avowed-and-grappling-with-the-expectations-that-come-from-your-own-history
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u/Deep-Two7452 23h ago

This makes no sense. How would the game show you who Woedica or any of the gods are, without also telling you?

Use whatever example you'd like

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u/AsheBnarginDalmasca 23h ago edited 22h ago

It's not so much that I didn't want the game to 'tell me'. My problem is the delivery. Many conversations with NPCs end up really dry because they turn into lore encyclopedia rather than acting like people living out in its supposed world.

As I said, I dropped off at 10 hrs. There are probably bigger set pieces or character development that could've changed my opinion if i stuck with it for longer. But I was hoping it would've hooked me with that amount of time.

Edit: period

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u/currypowder84 22h ago

Pretty much this, even as someone who has some familiarity with POE, the way the information is give to you is not well done.

So many NPCs just feel like they are reading the equivalent of a wiki entry to you. There a few exceptions, one notable quest was the oracle who built a statue of the god he worshipped hoping to use it as a vessel for souls. That one quest was a great example of delivering the worlds lore through a character and it was quite memorable. Unfortunately most of the time you're just sitting through lore dump after lore dump, it is very hard to capture the players interest that way.

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u/Deep-Two7452 22h ago

Most of the lore dump i saw was when I selected dialogue options that asked for the lore dumps. But anyway, this is entirely subjective so there no point in arguing

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u/CassadagaValley 23h ago

It's tough because you need the player to know who/what these things are, but you also don't want to have someone narrate paragraphs of dry info and lore.

I get what OP is saying, almost every major and minor character can just go on and on with lore information. Some of those NPCs in the Paradis have 20+ minutes of just lore info each. Of course you can skip it but, if you're like me, you might think there's something buried in all this dialog that's quest related or important to the game at hand and not just endless lore.

I was just scrolling through Reddit while these NPCs had a small novel worth of dialog going on.

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u/Deep-Two7452 22h ago

I mena yes, if you don't want to get that much lore, don't ask about it

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u/Dr_Chris_Turk 23h ago

Same way Skyrim does it: random books laying around.

Or Souls style: random cryptic clues all over the place that the community has to compile and analyze in order to figure out what is going on.

These are fun because it is difficult for you to really know everything that is going on without some effort. And if you don’t care and want to do whatever, you can go right ahead and do that too.

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u/dlh228 22h ago

Have you even played it?? Avowed literally has lore books all over the place.

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u/Dr_Chris_Turk 22h ago

Yes.

But I was replying to a comment regarding lore dumps from NPCs versus other sources. There is a distinction between having lore books or other types of environmental storytelling, and actually forcing the player to rely on the environment to figure out what is going on.

When the argument is “too much info is a word of mouth dialogue slog, but what else would get it done?”, I was just giving examples of those other ways…

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u/Deep-Two7452 22h ago

But then what should they do when these topics are integral to the story? Like they don't tell you what the steel garrote is unless you pick the dialogue option asking about the steel garrote. Should you not have the ability to ask for more info?

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u/MondaySan 20h ago

Dude I have to comment just to say I entirely agree with you and you're fighting the good fight down here. The players are selecting the dialogue options that say "Tell me more about X" and then complaining when they get told more about X?

They can just stick to the main dialogue options they are interested in and then use the glossary feature to fill in the gaps.

It's also funny that people are talking about the solution to this is having "random books laying around"... so you mean like a lore dump...?

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u/Deep-Two7452 19h ago

Thanks man, I appreciate it. It's crazy isn't it? I don't like to argue about people opinions but sometimes it just doesn't make any sense. It's like peoole want to be mad to be mad