Development Stories: Path of Exile 2 Narrative Design Philosophies

Great Post. Thank you.

I would really like to see more of Oriath and the surrounding areas. Maybe including the facts happening with Sirius and the destruction of our fight with him.

Nice.. I like the all idea..

I´D like to see Grigor in is journey to the Ezomite...

My favorite places are:

-The ledge
-The ridge
-The mines
And i like to see what happens whit Lioneyes`watch, is people...

great job :)

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Juicebox360 wrote:

"

Arterton wrote:

I hate Einar's personality with passion.

"You know, Einhar usually likes when people put their heart into something. Like my friend! He used to be the best blacksmith in all of Ezomyr. So it was only a matter of time before I asked him to join me on my hunts to revere the First Ones. But for no reason, he started to attack me instead! Einhar did not understand why his good friend did that! Arterton reminds me of my old friend. I love passion, but I do not love Arterton."

This made me giggle! :)

I hope to see some sort of the "old" intro to the game. I didn't played much beyond Ledge then, but I remember how dark and hopless I felt as character.

More choice based progression (it's an RPG after all?)

More weapons and other useful things that have a unique feature, spell or ability to summon some "genie in a bottle"?

Much love to ALL involved in making PoE!

Clearly Fairgraves, Piety, Grigor, Nessa, Clarissa, Alira.
Lionseye´s Watch, Crossroads, thats it.
Perhaps some more background to Gruthkul.

I'm really looking forward to the second part, even if I haven't even started to get the first one right and I'm in my official, second season :D

"

hexadecima wrote:

I'm terrified that if Zana returns in PoE 2 they're going to try to butcher her character.

I still hope we will get Zana boss fight before PoE2, maybe in next Atlas expansion in December. There is no reason for the Exile to ally with someone who would easily lock you within the Atlas and leave you there. Other Masters are fine, though.

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Observador wrote:

I'm glad that they are slowing down a bit, as I heard and saw on the announcement.[/i]

They don't.
You can still clear PoE2 as fast as you're able to clear PoE1, they confirmed it in the Q&A. They just used suboptimal and slow character in the showcase, because their goal was to show environment and not speedrunning for 10+ time.

To answer your question, what I'd love to see in POE2 is not necessary the completion of previous stories seeded in POE1, but perhaps small continuations to them, such as:

- Einhar and the First Ones: Even if the first ones don't make a focused comeback, how does Einhar justify 20 years passing with the return of the First Ones still not happening? Does he still believe they're imminent?
- If Niko is still alive after huffing so much Sulphite for another 20 years, is he still sane enough to interact with Exiles? He could be an Azurite-infused antagonist.
- I don't see Kirac having as central a story (if a story at all) in POE2 compared to POE1's current endgame, but perhaps he's found some new purpose/function working alongside Zana to keep the forces of the Atlas at bay?
- It would be awesome if you could find Cassia dealing with some blighted zone in a map, one that is more permanent and dangerous compared to the temporary nature of all blights in POE1.
- Jun's story is pretty much complete in POE1, but her being such a central character does open up possibilities for a new arc to her story, maybe something related to the Ring
- Fishing
- Innocence said he's be going away for a while, well... it's been a while!
- Corruption seems to be an important theme, as per the most recent gameplay trailer, so I reckon this could be the best time to expand on Atziri. From what I've gathered in the sparse post-apocalypse Vaal lore, she's canonically chilling in the Alluring Abyss. Idk if she'd want to leave what is basically her own pocket dimension, but her being released back into the world would certainly feel pretty momentous.
- With there being a power vacuum in the atlas right now (conquerors dead, maven back in void daycare), who is the new big bad there? Bonus points for it being a returning character!

of course I'd like to see some old foes and perhaps a few old allys

I've played PoE for the first time in 2013, back when Piety was the last boss, and clicking on entrance to the Scepter of God made you start again on the Twilight Strand, just higher difficulty. At least that's how I remember it went. There where 3 difficulty levels, I know I have not finished the last one back then, I kept dying to everything, PoE seemed to me very difficult at the time.

I have absolutely loved the story aspect of the game, for those 3 acts up until Piety. I have found it very mysterious, dark, scary. It made me uneasy, it was foreboding. I liked how little I really knew about it by design, the lost civilasations side of things. I know the world was by no means "realistic" anyway with all the thaumaturgy and stuff, but the story line of my character within the game felt quite believable, nothing too crazy all things considered.

I have returned to PoE years later, when it already had all 10 acts. I have found the game much more fun to play from the gameplay perspective, and a much better game overall, but in my view the narrative goes downhill after the 3rd act. Act 4 story has some elements I liked, but things already start getting "weird". And it got weirder in the 5-10 acts. And by that I mean, to me it just didn't fit, it was different, awkward, unbelievable in the sense as acts 1-3 were believable.

I don't really want to say that it is all bad per se, more like share my personal opinion, since you asked for it, I did not like it. It was not a continuation on par with the orginal story, and I felt like the orginal story deserved something else.

I say all this to illustrate my answer to your question, about what I would like to see again. I would like to see a narrative in line with the first 3 acts. Get back some of that feeling of unknown danger, knowledge lost in time, scraping the surface of ancient ruins of forgotten people, interacting with obscure powerful remnants.

Good luck to you, fingers crossed for something great

"

_Daybit_ wrote:

I still hope we will get Zana boss fight before PoE2, maybe in next Atlas expansion in December. There is no reason for the Exile to ally with someone who would easily lock you within the Atlas and leave you there. Other Masters are fine, though.

Yes, I feel the same. She would be perfect for the final boss of PoE 1. She already locked other people inside the altas, in her mind it was to be forever, and done it for greater good. Maybe she made the right decision then, but it's not a long way to doing something similar and this time wrong, for greater good. Easy to give us a motivation to fight her, and it would be a good closure to the overarching story of the expansions.