A Pathfinder Abomination Vaults ARPG coming to Kickstarter!

Have to say pretty disapointed and more than a little skeptical about this doing all that well (Reaction in general seems to be mixed at best.) I fear it will suffer the Pathfinder online fate.

I gotta say, very excited to try a Paizo co-op game that no one other than a dev team has to prep for.

Diablo 1 was my first ever computer game too, so I do rather fancy the look of it. I'm not a massive ARPG fan, but I'll give it a go before I have an opinion on that part. If it's Very User Friendly like Diablo 1 and 2 was, I may have a new regular game to play.

Meh. ARPG seems like a terrible fit... was hoping for a proper CRPG using 2E rules. Owlcat, come baaaaack :)

Owlcats likes to drop hints for future games, considering they dropped major hints for

Games might comes out a bit slower, but they'll likely be growing their team.

As long as their meme game stays strong, it'll be survivable.

the quests related to aspects of those 2 APs were the result of backer quests so take them with a grain of salt.

that being said I would love for the former to get made if only so that it would be a chance for paizo to finally fix the massive problems of that AP through owlcat.
The latter they would certainly have the assets for and they have mentioned the location in kingmaker as well so. who knows.

I'm cautiously optimistic about the abomination vaults game

McMoogle wrote:

Day 1 backer on this. I am super hype for it!

Let's gooo! This is how Diablo got its start. A megadungeon that you slowly delve the depths of.

Gonna be an awesome time as a couch co op experience.

I'm a bit taken aback by the not-zero amount of people here who are part of this community built around a social gaming experience that are not happy about it being a co-op game.

Blows my mind.

I've learned the official Paizo website is a very poor reflection of the Paizo community as a whole. You'll find a lot more modern and fresh views on other social sites tbh. On the topic of the game, this looks rad as hell, but sad Merisiel doesn't appear to be here considering she's in the art for the AP. Poor Kyra is gonna be lonely lol.

Haha I thought the same thing about Merisiel! I was like how are you gonna have Kyra and not let them defend one another!

Still I think it will be a great time. My buddy will definitely play Harsk, and my g/f will likely play as Kyra. I saw Amiri's Spin to Win and I was all in on her.

MiqoRems wrote:

The thing is, while I agree that people looking at a product specifically because they're a Paizo fan are more likely to want a CRPG than an ARPG- and you also have to take into consideration then midrange or casual fans that would buy *either* or *both* if both existed... on top of which, ARPGs are an ENORMOUSLY wider market outside the roleplayer base. Even if you take the assumption of "Paizo fans that will buy a CRPG" > "Paizo fans that will buy an ARPG" to be definitively true (which I'm not convinced is the case), "Paizo fans that will buy a CRPG + Non-fans that will buy a CRPG" is almost certainly lower than "Fans that will buy an ARPG + non-fans that will buy an ARPG".

Of course, debating over that is fairly pointless; we'll have empirical evidence of what sort of interest there is once the Kickstarter goes live!

As I said I don't think it will have zero appeal, but an ARPG is a much harder sell, and to far fewer people than all the folks here who love Pathfinder as an I.P and RPG's in general and who would have gone nuts for another CRPG.

Some may even argue an ARPG is an RPG as its in the name, but as I said in my first post ARPG's are a dumbing down on all levels of what is a beautiful game to begin with you lose the complexity and joy for the sake of FX. It's tantamount to an RPG being given the Michael Bay effect lol Sure it will look impressive and be all showy, but underneath the Fx its still amounts to a simplification of an awesome I.p.

And then you have the issue of (and again like I said) what will set this ARPG apart from the others of an already saturated market, with some LONg established favorites already. there have been lots of ARPG's and they have almost all vanished into obscurity outside of Diablo and PoE.

The video didn't really show anything to set it aside other than the fact it is using the Pahtfinder I.p and that doesn't matter to most computer game fans unless they also happen to be Pathfinder fans and most of those are going...

As an avid ARPG player with thousands of hours into the genre (6000 in PoE alone) we as a community are always on the lookout for a new flavor to whet our appetites with.

I have those kinds of hours in other ARPGs and I am very excited to get my hands on this PF offering.

I also don't think it's going to offer a similar experience to Diablo/PoE/LE/TQ/GD/L-M-N-O-P. I feel as though this game is going to re-tap the market that left a void when games like Gauntlet left a void.

I'd also like to point out that selling Pathfinder to pathfinder fans isn't a hard sell. People who post online are not the majority, they are often, if not always in the minority -- vocal though they are; and this is even more contextually relevant here on the Paizo forums, which are admittedly obscure and arcane when compared to something more accessible, like Reddit (which still only houses a minority of the voices in the community).

Paizo tapping this unexpected genre is a great boon, because it will sell to many people outside the typical scope of the game's reach.

There are a lot of people who did not/do not know that Pathfinder is a TTRPG system, but they played the Owlcat games, and now they at least have the brand recognition.

This offering will cast a net in a different part of the 'ocean' of players, and bring new people into the brand who wouldn't have given a cRPG a second glance.

There is a lot of "main character-ing" going on here, to "verb the noun", and I think a lot of people forget that they don't speak for the community, in spite of what they perceive. A fair amount of us posting online are excited, and I am positive that a great amount of people not keeping up on the news will be just as excited when they finally see a preorder go up or any kind of marketing begin.

Voice your dissent -- that's fine, but definitely gotta stop acting like you are the voice of the people.

Reading through these comments has been an emotional rollercoaster. Ultimately I'm cool with backing it at a digital level and seeing how that goes. Dumb fun Pathfindery game to play with loved ones would be a pleasant niche if I can keep the AV knowledge sufficiently divorced (or as a victory lap after running it with 'em) ~w~

I watched the video after being initially non-plussed on the concept. It took me a little while to understand what ARPG meant, at first being horrified that it meant augmented reality. And I would join the chorus of folks clamoring for a PF2 (R I guess) CRPG, having played the hell out of Neverwinter games back in the day.

And it was Wyatt Gray from BKOM who really made it seem like this is a passionate project by BKOM, and as he says, a love letter to the fans of Pathfinder. i get it, I’m not particularly a fan of this ARPG genre, I played the most recent Diablo recently and found it super boring, whereas I can play Abgband or Pathos or Moria or other similar roguelikes and be entertained. But I can see for fans of ARPG and fans of Pathfinder looking for some mindless looting and hacking, this could be fun. Good luck to BKOM.

But please, please, please, why is there recurring footage of BKOM employees in front of a giant logo in the background that reads….BK..C…M!!?!?

Also props to Mark Moreland for waving the flag of “yes, we hear you want a PF2 CRPG, but let not that diminish the hype for…yaknow…this actual game that is much more, a you know…thing,”

"Rich story" and "co-op" go together like fire and ice or quantum physics and football.

Such a huge letdown after two masterpieces (Kingmaker, Wrath of the Righteous).

"Rich story" and "co-op" go together like fire and ice or quantum physics and football.

Such a huge letdown after two masterpieces (Kingmaker, Wrath of the Righteous).

Two masterpieces by a completely different game developer?

My dude, c'mon.

passenger666 wrote:

"Rich story" and "co-op" go together like fire and ice or quantum physics and football.

Such a huge letdown after two masterpieces (Kingmaker, Wrath of the Righteous).

Two masterpieces by a completely different game developer?

My dude, c'mon.

As someone who played cRPGs since the late 1980s, I dare to say both Pathfinder games are masterpieces, shoulder-to-shoulder with Baldur's Gate 1 and 2, Fallout 1 and 2 or Planescape: Torment - so, yeah.

And about "being a different game developer" - I'm not sure what you want to say by that.

I wish all the best to BKOM and their game but I doubt they'll have a success. Today, 3/4 of all released games are co-ops - and that mostly means "we-decided-to-save-the-money-on-story-writer-so-you-and-your-friends-shoul d-make-the-story-in-your-head-for-yourself" thing. Hence, I don't play co-ops or MMOs and it's a disappointment for me.

Not everything is for you.

"Rich story" and "co-op" go together like fire and ice or quantum physics and football.

If you like TTRPGs, this seems like a really weird attitude to have.

I don't do Kickstarters but I will say I personally prefer ARPGs over CRPGs.

So if it does eventually come out I am more likely to try it then if it was more like Kingmaker or WotR.

passenger666 wrote:

"Rich story" and "co-op" go together like fire and ice or quantum physics and football.

If you like TTRPGs, this seems like a really weird attitude to have.

I can sympathise with this attitude, because CRPGs and TTRPGs are very differtent beasts. In a CRPG you can basically only play through the story that is presented, whereas with a TTRPG you can collaborate with your fellow players to create one. They may share the same mechanics, but how they are experienced are not at all the same. Having a GM makes a world of difference.

The Kickstarter is online. For those who are curious about Owlcat's stance: They actually advertised BKOM's campaign in their latest update.

The BKOM panel at PaizoCon has made me much more optimistic about this game, and likely to participate in the Kickstarter. 2025 is a long way off, though!

I'll sign up for that kickstarter when they announce a Mac version of the game.