Why does Codex think NWN2 will [insert negative adjective]?

[Johannes Teugen]

Despite Gromnir's faux-barbarian (man, that schtick never gets old!) hyperbole, I'm always excited when I new RPG comes along. Hope springs eternal.

And despite the fact that NWN1 was an awful, awful game, I was actually pretty excited about NWN2. Until I heard about 20 hours of gameplay. That fact alone will cause me to wait on a purchase. Until I hear that the SP campaign is more than 30, and that the gameplay is worthwhile, no purchase for me.

Onward toward Dragon Age, I guess.

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

I was actually pretty excited about NWN2. Until I heard about 20 hours of gameplay. That fact alone will cause me to wait on a purchase. Until I hear that the SP campaign is more than 30, and that the gameplay is worthwhile, no purchase for me.

Onward toward Dragon Age, I guess.

Hey, I'm hoping NWN2 is decent. After all, Obsidian and BioWare are about as close to all we have left to pin our hopes on these days. Of course, that brings up the question as to why I have a huge ass collection of games so large that I had to buy three 5 teir StudioRTA bookcases to store them all... Yet the vast majority of them are 3+ year old games and very few of them are newer than that.

I'd buy a Cyberstorm 3 in a heartbeat, though.

 

[Pseudofool]

my liking the OC.

all i needed to know

 

[Volourn]

Good. Now go fuck yourself. Hahahahhaha!

 

[whatusername]

I don't get why all of you are so mad at Obsidion for the horror that is KOTOR 2. It's basically all LucasArts' fault. They were pressuring Obsidion to finish it for a Christmas release. Here's an exerpt from Wikipedia:

There has been some controversy regarding the game's third act, or "endgame". LucasArts pressured developer Obsidian to finish the game for a 2004 holiday release, leading many to speculate that the development had been rushed. The game contains a sizable number of bugs, which occasionally cripple gameplay. Also, some of the content from the game proper appears to be missing, though much of it can be found inside the game files.

While some gamers are quick to dismiss late-game plot holes on the rushed ending, many of them are beginning to discover that many of the "plot holes" are explained in sizable detail, if the player is willing to spend the time to accomplishing this task. For example, each party member has considerable backstory and plot revelation, which is only heard in-game if the party member likes the player character. Since many actions cause the gain or loss of influence with party members, it is not uncommon to find that a critic has never gotten acceptable influences with certain party members. The originally planned ending would have provided in-game fates - and in many cases, deaths - for all of the characters who travel with the main player character. In-game, the game ends with a Force User revealing the party member's futures. By explaining their futures, instead of showing the events leading up to the finale, it leaves just what happened to the designers of KOTOR III.

In a gesture to the fans, Obsidian Entertainment provided the PC version of the game with many resources meant to be used for the original ending, such as screen plays, voice-acting, and even another planet. Pressure from LucasArts to release the game in time for the Christmas season may have forced Obsidian to abbreviate the ending and cut an entire planet (and corresponding missions) from the game.

 

[StraitLacedDeviant]

They should have stood up to the pressure, told lucasarts to suck their fatty and squeezes out a fully formed game. It still would have sold in massive quantities.

 

[kris]

I don't get why all of you are so mad at Obsidion for the horror that is KOTOR 2. It's basically all LucasArts' fault. They were pressuring Obsidion to finish it for a Christmas release. Here's an exerpt from Wikipedia:

MCA said in a interview that they had non but themselves to blame. He could be lying though.

 

[Vault Dweller]

I don't get why all of you are so mad at Obsidion for the horror that is KOTOR 2. It's basically all LucasArts' fault. They were pressuring Obsidion to finish it for a Christmas release. Here's an exerpt from Wikipedia:

First, nobody's mad at them. Second, when a developer has little or no say in a developer-publisher relationship, that usually means that the developer is fucked. Atari is in a tough financial situation, so it's safe to assume that they would want the game out the moment it's playable. Third, there were "bad design" issues with KOTOR 2 that had nothing to do with LucasArts.

 

[golgotha]

I have no idea why I have any hopes for NWN2, but I do. I bought NWN because it was on sale for about $30 and packaged with SoU a few years back and was utterly disappointed in the game. Not only was the gameplay pretty poor, I felt disconnected from the world and was just fucking bored senseless.

 

[Jora]

MCA said in a interview that they had non but themselves to blame. He could be lying though.

Had he not said that Obsidian would be blamed for blaming the publisher for everything. Look what happened to Troika:

B: "When will the patch be released?"
A: "I don't know. The patch is ready but Activision hasn't said anything."
B: "So now the vampire hunter crash is Activision's fault?! Have you no shame!

I have no idea why I have any hopes for NWN2, but I do

One idea could be that Obsidian has nothing to do with the original NWN.

 

[whatusername]

I don't get why all of you are so mad at Obsidion for the horror that is KOTOR 2. It's basically all LucasArts' fault. They were pressuring Obsidion to finish it for a Christmas release. Here's an exerpt from Wikipedia:

First, nobody's mad at them. Second, when a developer has little or no say in a developer-publisher relationship, that usually means that the developer is fucked. Atari is in a tough financial situation, so it's safe to assume that they would want the game out the moment it's playable. Third, there were "bad design" issues with KOTOR 2 that had nothing to do with LucasArts.

Aye, thanks for clearing up my confusion Vault Dweller.

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

Atari is in a tough financial situation, so it's safe to assume that they would want the game out the moment it's playable.

Which is a smart move that worked great for Interplay. Atari has already done a decent bit of damage to their name with things like Driv3r. NWN2 is a pretty high profile game. If they screw up the release of NWN2 by rushing it out the door, they're in for a world of hurt.

 

[Vault Dweller]

Atari is in a tough financial situation, so it's safe to assume that they would want the game out the moment it's playable.

Which is a smart move that worked great for Interplay. Atari has already done a decent bit of damage to their name with things like Driv3r. NWN2 is a pretty high profile game. If they screw up the release of NWN2 by rushing it out the door, they're in for a world of hurt.

If Atari's executives were smart, they wouldn't be in a tough financial sitiation to begin with. I actually would be surprised if they don't butcher the release somehow.

Edit: Comments that "the length of NWN2 has very recently been modified" indicate that some screwing with the game is already in progress.

 

[Mefi]

If Atari's executives were smart, they wouldn't be in a tough financial sitiation to begin with. I actually would be surprised if they don't butcher the release somehow.

So true. I'm expecting a lot of compatability problems to emerge within two days of release. Let alone anything else which slips through testing.

I'd certainly not expect much support once the first 6 weeks have passed (6 weeks = optimal sales time). There might be some room for a slight delay if they push the release to just before Christmas which would allow them to have a patch ready for critical issues. Wonder whether Atari are still insisting on carrying out their own QA on every patch as this slows the patching process down a lot.

If you want a giggle dig out the information about the Dragonshard patch 1.2.1 - 4 months to test a critical issue patch and then they forgot to release it. Seriously - they then uploaded it to their ftp and then forgot to tell anyone about it. It's straight from the manual of 'How to Kill a Game'.

Of course, NWN2 is a much higher profile title so Atari ought to be a little more on the ball. But then again...

edit: VD - the cuts will probably be recycled into the first 'expansion'. Would be a waste otherwise

 

[Jora]

Edit: Comments that "the length of NWN2 has very recently been modified" indicate that some screwing with the game is already in progress.

I got the feeling that the length was modified because of the outrage that resulted from the rushed ending of Sith Lords. According to Sawyer, they are very aware of everyone's opinion about it. Sawyer also said that it's impossible to know the length of a game beforehand and that neither he nor Feargus (who has played the game even less than Sawyer) should even begin trying to estimate it.

Lead tester Nataniel Chapman, however, has said that he is in the position to say what the length approximately is. He said that much of the stuff that was cut has been implemented elsewhere in the game and that the campaign is longer than they previously thought.

 

[Vault Dweller]

Edit: Comments that "the length of NWN2 has very recently been modified" indicate that some screwing with the game is already in progress.

I got the feeling that the length was modified because of the outrage that resulted from the rushed ending of Sith Lords.

The outrage was more than a year ago, the length was modified "recently". In fact, "recent" K2 modifications is exactly what caused the outrage, so ... deja vu.

According to Sawyer, they are very aware of everyone's opinion about it.

So? Being aware doesn't mean shit these days. I'm sure that MCA was aware that K2's ending was less than totally awesome and mind blowing.

Lead tester Nataniel Chapman, however, has said that he is in the position to say what the length approximately is.

And? What's the magic number is?

He said that much of the stuff that was cut has been implemented elsewhere in the game ...

What exactly does that mean? No, really?

...and that the campaign is longer than they previously thought.

Master of doublespeak padawan Chapman is. Far in the PR industry he would go.

 

[Jora]

The outrage was more than a year ago, the length was modified "recently". In fact, "recent" K2 modifications is exactly what caused the outrage, so ... deja vu.

What I meant is that they didn't want to include too much content in a fear of not being able to make the experience as satisfactory as possible. They didn't want to end up making yet another KotOR2.

So? Being aware doesn't mean shit these days. I'm sure that MCA was aware that K2's ending was less than totally awesome and mind blowing

Sawyer implied heavily that they're trying hard to make the ending good. I see no reason to just ignore what he said.

And? What's the magic number is?

I don't remember. I'll go and see if I find his posts.

What exactly does that mean? No, really?

It means as much as some of them saying that some stuff was removed.

Master of doublespeak padawan Chapman is. Far in the PR industry he would go.

No, it's just me and my short memory.

 

[Jora]

http://nwn2forums.bioware.com/forums/vi ... um=95&sp=0

Uhh... I don't think we pared down our Single-player (and co-op MP) OC at all. I don't know where you'd get that impression, either - the SP OC has tons of gameplay, as many companions as some of the old Infinity Engine games... just lots more of everything that we know you guys love. I don't think there's much about our SP campaign that could be referred to as "pared down".

As the person managing the QA on this game, and thus the person in charge of getting people to try to beat the game as quickly as possible, I have to say that this is wrong. I would not describe our SP Campaign as short in any way, shape or form. I think 30-40+ hours would be a conservative estimate for someone actually trying to play through the game.

Let me just say this - when you shoot for a certain amount of gameplay (let's say, 20+ hours, as has been stated in interviews in the past), you then go and craft content to fill that time. Sometimes you end up creating too little, and undershoot that estimate significantly. Other times, you end up hitting it pretty much exactly. And, finally, every once in a while you underestimate what you can do, and you end up with more gameplay than you at first realised. A lot more.

30-40 is my personal estimate as someone who is trying to, as part of my job, get people to beat the game as quickly as possible. Estimates get revised as we get closer to ship, of course, but I think it's a realistic one.

Of course, the 30-40 estimate assumes you are not skipping every conversation, not rapidly clicking and hitting 1 for each conversation option, and not running past every monster, but actually playing the game and reading the dialogue. You can probably speedrun the game faster (we've been trying... it's not easy!) but you can speedrun Morrowind in 15 minutes - doesn't mean it's a 15 minute game.

You have to realise, the 20+ hour estimate was made before all the content in the game was completed. It's true that the estimate was made before certain areas were cut, but we haven't been able to complete each area in the game until recently - and this amount of gameplay time is what we've been seeing so far. It may be possible that something radical will change before ship, but at this point I think beating the game in 20 hours is something closer to what we expect of professional QA testers attempting to speedrun the game, and not what an actual player would see.

Were you around for the release of IWD2, though? That was a game that they had estimated at 20-30 hours and ended up taking some people 70+ hours to get through!

I'm not sure who your "other sources" might be, but I can tell you they are in no better position than I am to estimate how long it will take an end user to actually complete our game, since we in QA are trying to beat the game faster and faster each day.

All my other stuff was just estimates from a game that is not yet completed, but here's something I will guarantee. NWN2's single player campaign will be much, much, much longer than HoW. Promise.

EDIT:

Guys, I am not trying to lie to you, or to inflate the length of our game to get you to buy it. I have no reason to lie to you.

I am just giving my honest estimate based on what I see managing people who play the game every day. Any estimate you heard before the game was even able to be completed was obviously not very reliable, and was just that - an estimate.

"We're shooting for 20 hours", means that the specifications of the project say, "make a 20 hour campaign" and then you give that specification to designers to craft content to fill 20 hours. But you don't really know for a fact how long the game is until you can actually finish it, right?

Well, we're closing in on that time, and I'm saying that right now it looks like the game is going to be longer than 20 hours for anyone that is actually trying to play it. I'm saying that when we have new QA testers attempt to beat the game as quickly as humanly possible, ignoring all dialogue, non-essential combat, and set to be invincible, they are hard pressed to finish in 20 hours.

As I said before, something could change in development, and we could end up sprinting the game in a much shorter amount of time. I am not promising that you will finish the game in 30-40 hours - you may be a gaming supergenius and be able to beat the game as fast as one of our sprinters. Again, you could beat Fallout 2 in just a couple of hours in a speedrun - that doesn't mean it was a 2 hour game. I am just saying that my conservative estimate for how long it will take the average player to beat our game, assuming they are actually playing the game and not just speedrunning it, is closer to 30-40 hours than 20.

I think if anyone here at Obsidian were interested in lying to you guys, we wouldn't have said mounts were out. We wouldn't have said the DM client might not make ship. We wouldn't have told you guys about server system requirements or any of the other stuff that we know you guys won't like. But we DO tell you, because we respect you guys and know that you want to know what's up with the game. I'd appreciate enough respect as well to not jump to the first assumption that we are lying when we actually come out and say something is going to be better than we first thought it would be.

 

[Vault Dweller]

Uhh... I don't think we pared down our Single-player ...

So, he either says that the lead designer doesn't know what he's talking about or admits his own cluelessness. Neither explanation is good for the game.

As the person managing the QA on this game, and thus the person in charge of getting people to try to beat the game as quickly as possible...

Is that what QA all about?

Let me just say this - when you shoot for a certain amount of gameplay (let's say, 20+ hours, as has been stated in interviews in the past), you then go and craft content to fill that time.

Is he saying that the original design/aim was for 20 hours?

Were you around for the release of IWD2, though? That was a game that they had estimated at 20-30 hours and ended up taking some people 70+ hours to get through!

The original estimation was correct, which doesn't reflect positively on the QA guy, his arguments, and the length of the game.

 

[Jora]

So, he either says that the lead designer doesn't know what he's talking about or admits his own cluelessness. Neither explanation is good for the game.

Well, Sawyer actually said that anyone who hasn't played through the game or has played as little as him or Feargus shouldn't make any guesses. Besides, hasn't Nathaniel worked on the project longer than Josh?

Is that what QA all about?

Don't they have something called critical path testers? Who try to test main plot points as quickly as possible to save time and for other obscure reasons?

Is he saying that the original design/aim was for 20 hours?

That's how I understood it.

 

[Vault Dweller]

So, he either says that the lead designer doesn't know what he's talking about or admits his own cluelessness. Neither explanation is good for the game.

Well, Sawyer actually said that anyone who hasn't played through the game or has played as little as him or Feargus shouldn't make any guesses. Besides, hasn't Nathaniel worked on the project longer than Josh?

I'm talking about this quote:

Sawyer: "The length of NWN2 (whatever its true hours wind up being) has very recently been modified based on what is an acceptable level of quality for Obsidian. That is, we want to make certain that every area that goes into the finished game has a high level of quality from art and design and that every area has a healthy amount of testing."

Don't they have something called critical path testers? Who try to test main plot points as quickly as possible to save time and for other obscure reasons?

No idea, never worked in QA. However, the guy equates testing with "beating the game as quickly as possible" and that's a subject for concern.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to be negative about the game, and I really, really, REALLY want it to be a good game for several reasons, but the QA guy's comments not only failed to reassure, but gave me more reasons to lower expectations.

 

[bryce777]

So, he either says that the lead designer doesn't know what he's talking about or admits his own cluelessness. Neither explanation is good for the game.

Well, Sawyer actually said that anyone who hasn't played through the game or has played as little as him or Feargus shouldn't make any guesses. Besides, hasn't Nathaniel worked on the project longer than Josh?

I'm talking about this quote:

Sawyer: "The length of NWN2 (whatever its true hours wind up being) has very recently been modified based on what is an acceptable level of quality for Obsidian. That is, we want to make certain that every area that goes into the finished game has a high level of quality from art and design and that every area has a healthy amount of testing."

Don't they have something called critical path testers? Who try to test main plot points as quickly as possible to save time and for other obscure reasons?

No idea, never worked in QA. However, the guy equates testing with "beating the game as quickly as possible" and that's a subject for concern.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to be negative about the game, and I really, really, REALLY want it to be a good game for several reasons, but the QA guy's comments not only failed to reassure, but gave me more reasons to lower expectations.

QA people for games are normally complete idiots. On many projects I have woked on there are actual software engineers who do the QA and write up test scripts to perform.

If you just do playtesting you are never, ever going to get all the bugs out.

The quest system I ahve talked about in other threads or some other mechanical system is what's really needed to fix a lot of the braindead quest problems we see in games today.

 

[Azarkon]

They should have stood up to the pressure, told lucasarts to suck their fatty and squeezes out a fully formed game. It still would have sold in massive quantities.

In the gaming industry, you don't get to tell the publisher what to do until you've proved yourself a Midas that everyone wants a piece of. This is particularly the case in the PC game industry, where your choice of publisher (and thus funding) is limited indeed.

 

[Drakron]

Actually they do ... time and time again as STALKER and Duke Nuken Forever have shown.

The question is how much money do they have to survive as they delay the game, from what I taken publishers rather make payments at milestones and that is without a doubt the cause of the sheer amount of shitty games we see today.

In the gaming industry nobody have the "Midas touch", the heavy weights are either part of the publisher (Squarenix, Blizzard, Rockstar) or they have a lot of money (Valve, Epic).

You can say Obsidian lacks the money to delay their games but without seeing NwN2 we cannot say if the problems of KotOR2 developement are what we can expect from Obsidian games.

 

[RGE]

However, the guy equates testing with "beating the game as quickly as possible" and that's a subject for concern.

Think about it. If getting people to finish the game as quickly as possible is one of the things that QA is responsible for, then his statement is still correct, without that necessarily being the only thing QA does.

"I am the boss of my own life, thus I'm the one who decides when to go to the bathroom." (Secret fact: Going to the bathroom is not the only thing I do, and not the only thing I decide.)