Development Stories: Path of Exile 2 Narrative Design Philosophies
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I never understand why players these days skip over dialogue and/or don't care about the story.
As bad as D3 was they at least put in quests for the 3 followers which were better than I thought they'd be, lorewise. Even in D2 it felt easier to connect with certain NPC's within just a few paragraphs of dialogue. It was also a nice touch to have certain NPC react differently depending on what class you were. |
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what poe 1 lacks is rewards and choices paired with your character development. except from the bandits quest, there are no choices that alter how you reach endgame. the item rewards can be completely skipped, and the gem rewards become trivial after you reach act 6. the regret point rewards are pretty off considering how easy is to get orbs of regret. i believe people end up killing uber elder while fairgraves's ghost is still tied to his ship lol
no third challenge reward since beta lmao
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Hi Matt,
I talked with some players about PoE's story and noone could tell me anything about it. Players like me, that repeated acts each league, dont read the conversations. I tried sometimes to read all the dialogues but there are TOO MANY lines. Lines explaining things that i dont really understand about a complex lore. Luckily, i watch some videos in Youtube about the secret lore and history in PoE to truly understand it. What i think we need in PoE 2? Action and less text. I dont mean cinematics but chracters doing things instead of standing in the towns. Things like rescueing Clarrisa in Act 3 or opening Kitava's horns in Act 10. Heist conversations feel quite natural and funny, Delirium and Ultimatum voice lines are awesome. I believe you will do an awesome job in POE 2. Thanks TEAM. |
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" A lot of people pass off multiplayer/ARPG game lore as missable because it's usually so awful. That being said. I think Path of Exile lore is my favorite Fantasy game lore of all time. Fuck WoW, fuck Warhammer, fuck everything else. Path of Exile lore has kept me enraptured since 2012. |
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I really liked the idea of the tower of god and the artwork of sarn with it in the background.
Hope to see it revisited and to be epic To vanquish without perils is to triumph without glory.
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" That'd be interesting, but I suspect quite difficult to balance. Some research is in order to see if this has been tried anywhere... " I think Ace Combat X has something like this - there's a point in its campaign where you can take one of two possible missions, and your choice affects the capabilities of an upcoming boss - and it's not beyond plausibility here given what we saw in the recent PoE2 demonstration. I would also second IIIPaiNIII's suggestion about a codex. A good place to start right now would be Einhar's bestiary - it's quite believable that he would have notes therein about the various creatures' behaviors... On another note, and somewhat related to the matter of choice: given that we'd be creating a new character who's going through a world shaped in part by the events of the previous game, it's an opportunity to take a page from Torchlight 2 (setting aside the differences in art style) in terms of character creation options... White Knight of the Order of Mihoshi Enthusiasts
"Destroyed overnight, or the next one's free." |
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"Maybe we'll take a boat"
Boat league confirmed at last. |
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Also Malachi's gotta show back up at least once right?? For one of the most smartest and powerful dudes in the POE1 campaign it's odd that you kill him once and then he just... stays dead...?
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" agreed! I love act 1, 2 & 3 and all its protagonists. I love Lunaris Temple - the atmosphere reminds me of Diablo 1&2 but it also has its own distinct style. The visuals, the old Lunaris Soundtrack, the screams and the creepy and at the time pretty difficult mobs came together perfectly. The atmosphere of Lioneye's watch with the old music was amazing, it set the tone of the game up perfectly (that doesn't mean the new track isn't beautiful - it just doesn't have the same impact). Also the old character screen, the rain, the ship. Great atmosphere. And no, this is not just being nostalgic. PoE always had a great atmosphere - and some of it was definitely lost when GGG tried to push out a lot of content, perhaps a bit too fast. I'm especially not a fan of the Sin+Innocence - protagonists and the gods story. Feels a bit cheap and Diablo3-stylish. Looking forward to PoE2's story! IGN PPPPanddddaPPPPanicccc
still waiting for that 'Chris Wilson-director's cut' version oh wait, I finally got it. Thanks team! |
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Hi GGG!
I really miss all POE 1 characters reactions to events in act 5-10. I assume, you did not add them because you couldn't get all actors again in 2016-2017. But now, is a great chance to describe their reaction through some notes or other NPC dialogs. In D3 (correct me if I am wrong) we got D1 warrior character canonical name. That also could be great thing to add for POE 1 characters. ---------------------------- Also, don't you want to expand POE time travel or Atlas mechanics to present events from the past? There is rich lore that could be presented via special maps design + some dialog or script scenes or at least lore notes. I would like to see more about previous ages: Primordial, Abyss, start of the story about Innocence and Sin, Vaal, Azmeri and also current otherworldly Beyond and Breach etc. ----------------------------- Also I liked ARMOR PIERCING BOLTS! Please add more of that stuff! |
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