Pretty much agreed. I think the main reason for "the hook" is simply the name. Obsidian. It can take a very long time for a once great name to lose its power and many buy into it simply because of the sticker slapped on it.

Avowed would have been fine. But for 30-40 dollars, not 70. Asking 70 for it seems just insane to me and I suspect one of the main reasons it's day 1 gamepass, so they can farm the numbers there at least. Because otherwise, it's 100% a wait for sale material. I could easily see myself shelling out full price for KCD 2 (60 bucks by the way), but 70 for this absolutely not. The quality just doesn't seem to be there.

I feel like most would find more fun in Kingdoms of Amalur, which is currently on sale here on GOG, 15 bucks for the FATE Edition.

The problem is that people expected Avowed to be the next Skyrim or Fallout: New Vegas since it is made by Obsidion. It’s not, it’s an action RPG. The focus is on world-building and combat, rather than traditional RPG mechanics. This is also why the game allows for so much fluidity between classes and stats, letting you change skills and attributes on the fly without penalties and so on. As an open-world action RPG, it’s a really strong game with several interesting innovations.

I saw a review that pointed out that if this game had been made by another studio, people would have praised it to heaven and back. But because it’s an Obsidian game, expectations were different, and people assumed it would be something else.

Because it launched like, a few months after Fallout 76 iirc? it was also marketed as a direct jab at Bethesda because the creators of Fallout were behind it

It's honestly the middest mid game ever, but at the time it just had to be better than F76 to be acclaimed. If it were released today people wouldn't even look at it lol

You cannot blame peoples to be expecting an Obsidian games to be... an Obsidian game.

Of course if it was an small Indy dev releasing their first game with a tiny budget peoples might have reacted more favorably. But here, not only it is an Obisdian games but also supposed to be taking place in the Pillars universe so it is normal that peoples had expectations on both the story and RPG side.

But even in the combat side it seems to not everything is that great, while the combat is fun at first, including melee, it seems to become stale after sometime with enemies being rather spongy and the combat being limited to smashing the left click button until the enemies are dead. So it is not really a deep combat system like the one you can find on other popular action RPGs. (Based on review I saw and read, I haven't played the game myself)

In the end I think the best description for Avowed that I read online was :

"Avowed : brought to you by Obsidian the studio that used to employ those who brought you 'Fallout new-Vegas' and 'Pillars of Eternity'"

But by that logic, a developer could never explore different genres, try something new, or innovate, because the expectation would always be that they must stick to more of the same. So even if they create a genuinely good game, they still get slammed for it simply because it’s not the same type of game they made before. In the end, we’re judging developers, not the games themselves. That, to me, is putting the cart before the horse.

And then you have to wonder - why is one of the biggest complaints about AAA companies like Ubisoft that they keep making the same repetitive games?

So it's the catfishing ? ;)

The logo is indeed a factor when it comes to getting folks to pay the asking price and through the door, so, yes, there's that.

I too think the price is off, 70 coins seems to be the new standard price tag for AAA these days, thing is, when looking at Avowed, the only thing i see even close to AAA is its budget.

I have no idea about what folks were expecting to get or how what they got measures up against their expectations.

But if what you say is a factor then the marketing and communication leading up to release was a monumental failure. If release day comes a knocking and the general public's expectations about what the game is and is not aren't properly managed yet, well, either communication was a failure or the mismanagement was deliberate because the company thought that it would be to its advantage.

I do know that expectations are not a factor for me, this crew's previous game did nothing for me and that not only took care of any expectations i might have had but also raised an obvious red flag. Just like it happened with TOW, when i look at Avowed, i see nothing that interests me, that's the long and short of it.

I think there's something fundamentally unappealing to me in the way these folks craft their games and that starts right off the bat with the way in which they craft the game world, color pallete, brightness, geometry, it's one of those cases where every single thing, big and small, about a game simply does not click with me.

I honestly don't recall much about its marketing. But i do seem to recall a couple of back then prominent youtube reviewers propping the game up as if it was the greatest thing ever. I also remember that they had different bones to pick with Beth and i don't think the issues were entirely related to the merits, or lack thereof, of '76, i thinks the issues were more of a personal nature.

So, yeah, tribalism may have been a factor as well.

And I always ask myself where this comes from.
That Obsidian is such a big name for RPGs.

What they got is, that in COMPARISON to other games of that specific time the game was released, their game had a good storyline and characters.
Talking about Fallout NV now, the comparison was Fallout 3 and Oblivion.
Those got characters? Oblivion got a (main) story? They where compared to Bethesda. Do we have to talk about writing and Bethesda? Some half arsed sidequests can be good, but the last time Bethesda managed to write more then 2 sentences in a good way might have been Morrowind.
I won't say NV was bad. For me it was the best 3D Fallout, simply because decisions lead to consequences. Something Bethesda is avoiding like the devil holy water.
But the bar was very low and it is far from "the best".

The story of Alpha Protocol wasn't that good either. it had some memorable people in it, but yeah...
Its point was to be something new, something fresh.

And I don't know if I want to call the story of Neverwinter Nights 2 that much better then NWN1 (even more the NWN1 Addons).

So where is that reputation from? From jumping over low bars marked by low performers?
Only from Kotor2?

For me Obsidian was always "buggy and unfinished mess + some interesting ideas for the game + above avarage ideas in writing, that can work"
But it was never THE big thing. It was never THE creators of story and worlds.

And for me they lost the last part of the Mojo with Outer Worlds.
Never finished it, but for me the writing feeled, like there was only one ship with smart people, I am from that ship and everyone else is between stupid and retarded and deserves to be handled accordingly.
I don't want to help ANYONE of you. Add in teenage "critics" on capitalism and there we go.
I mean, if they wanted to do a "satire" that makes me cringe hard enough to stop playing the game - well done.
If it was intended to be intelligent in any way - not so much.

So where is it from that you only need to throw shitloads of money at Obsidian, to finally get their Magnum Opus?