Obsidian General Discussion Thread

[Talby]

Fallout New Vegas 2...

Made in the Pillars of Eternity engine, now featuring turn-based combat.

 

[Name]

IIRC North Carolina is the open world game developed for M$ XBONE, called Stormlands or something.

 

[Infinitron]

Source: http://www.gameinformer.com/b/featu...mb-raider-obsidian-39-s-feargus-urquhart.aspx

Gaming's gigantic week of releases has arrived! Starcraft 2: Legacy of the Void, Rise of the Tomb Raider, and a little game with a heart of gold called Fallout 4 are now for sale and The Game Informer Show is here to cover it all. We'll dive deeper into the new Starcraft expansion next week when we've had more time to play, but we're ready to share all of our thoughts on Fallout 4 and Rise of the Tomb Raider. On this week's show, Tim Turi bows out after the first couple of minutes so that he can rest his voice after our intense Extra Life marathon but Ben Hanson is joined by Jeff Cork, Andrew Reiner, and Kimberley Wallace. We also touch on the rise of biographical games like the online dating-fueled Cibele and The Beginner's Guide.

After a spirited round of listener emails, we're joined by the CEO of Obsidian Entertainment Feargus Urquhart to talk about his amazing career in the industry. We cover the origins of the Fallout series and the reasons behind Fallout 4's bugs, the secrets behind some of their unreleased games, and what went right and wrong during the production of South Park: The Stick of Truth.

Watch episode 273 below or subscribe and listen to the audio on iTunes. Also, be sure to send your emails to podcast@gameinformer.com for a chance to have them answered on the show and win a prize by becoming Email of the Week!

Damn long interview.

 

[Duraframe300]

Feargus said in this interview in the Game Informer show that they've signed with a publisher to make a repurposed version of the north carolina project, and it should be announced "in the next few months".
Interview begins at ~1:20, but he talks about this at ~2:30.

Kewl

 

[Infinitron]

The part at the beginning where he talks about his early career and how the industry has changed since then is fascinating. Tons of praise for Brian Fargo.

 

[Volrath]

Kewl

Another shitty console game. Kewl indeed.

 

[Duraframe300]

Another shitty console game. Kewl indeed.

Kewl because we're going to see what Stormlands was at least in some regards.

 

[Infinitron]

Some talk about the development hell of South Park (tl;dw Matt and Trey were primadonnas) and also about the South Park sequel (remember that?).

Feargus says Obsidian had too many projects to do the sequel, although he also seems to imply that they weren't ever approached to do it.

 

[Infinitron]

Asked why no publisher hires Obsidian to do an open world RPG after the success of Fallout: New Vegas. The answer - publisher risk aversion to launch new brands, and a lack of understanding of RPGs.

 

[Delbaeth]

I don't see why people should expect a Fallout RPG from Obsidian even though Bethesda would agree. The Obsidian Fallout game would be based on Fallout 4 engine and tweaks. Obsidian would make a STALKER-like at best, but not a RPG anymore, since Fallout 4 isn't one. They could if they would had the time, but we know Zenimax. Obsidian would never have the time to make a proper RPG based on a RPGlite tweaked engine.

Fallout is dead, let's face it.

 

[Necroscope]

So is there any hope for New Vegas 2 or not?

 

[Infinitron]

The cancellation of Project North Carolina/Stormlands. Feargus more-or-less admits that Microsoft decided that Obsidian didn't have what it took to create a worthy XBox One launch title. A game that people wouldn't pay just $60 for but $560.

Then they tried to modify it and pitch it to other publishers, who all rejected it and said it wasn't different enough from the original game. It was at that point that Obsidian grew desperate enough to do a Kickstarter.

 

[Xeon]

Obsidian added and changed a lot of stuff that were missing in Fallout 3, don't see any reason that they can't do the same with Fallout 4 equivalent[?]. Josh is efficient I guess at running projects in shorter time.

 

[Infinitron]

As Fairfax said, some incarnation of Stormlands eventually did get greenlit by a publisher, but it's now "very different from what it was". But some ideas have still been pulled through.

 

[Crooked Bee]

Feargus more-or-less admits that Microsoft decided that Obsidian didn't have what it took to create a worthy XBox One launch title. A game that people wouldn't pay just $60 for but $560.

Yeah, looking at the Xbox One launch title line-up, looking for worthier studios worked out really well for Microsoft.

 

[Infinitron]

In the end, he talks about Fig and about financing games in general. The new paradigm is Hollywood-style investment - not one single party (the publisher) that funds an entire game alone, but gathering funds from many sources.

 

[Sannom]

Was Stormlands the one in which the player had to navigate a kingdom/universe which had been conquered by the Ultimate Evil of that universe? Feargus mentioned the idea in multiple interviews a few years back, describing it as "Middle Earth taken over by Sauron", and Avellone's ideas for a hypothetical KOTOR 3 felt like the same thing but in the Star Wars universe. So it's an idea that can be applied to a lot of settings.

 

[Roguey]

I wonder if Josh is going to be involved with Stormlands since it was originally his project.

Obsidian would make a STALKER-like at best, but not a RPG anymore, since Fallout 4 isn't one.

I guess the thing is, I don't really view RPG and FPS as separate genres. FPS is the style of combat that the game has outside of VATS. But the RPG always influences how you use that combat system, whether it's in VATS or in first-person real-time.

As long as they can create scripted and systemic reactivity to your actions, they don't care.

 

[Duraframe300]

In the end, he talks about Fig and about financing games in general. The new paradigm is Hollywood-style investment - not one single party (the publisher) that funds an entire game alone, but gathering funds from many sources.

He already talked about that a while (even a year, I think) ago.

Confused it with something else

 

[Infinitron]

I wonder if Josh is going to be involved with Stormlands since it was originally his project.

If this is a project that's been in development since early 2014 then it's probably too late for that.

 

[Duraframe300]

Was Stormlands the one in which the player had to navigate a kingdom/universe which had been conquered by the Ultimate Evil of that universe? Feargus mentioned the idea in multiple interviews a few years back, describing it as "Middle Earth taken over by Sauron", and Avellone's ideas for a hypothetical KOTOR 3 felt like the same thing but in the Star Wars universe. So it's an idea that can be applied to a lot of settings.

No, that idea is way older. (2008 IIRC when they pitched it)

 

[Duraframe300]

If this is a project that's been in development since early 2014 then it's probably too late for that.

Oh, did he mention it was that one?

 

[Infinitron]

Oh, did he mention it was that one?

What other game could it be? Occam's Razor dictates we assume any unannounced project being discussed is the one we know already exists.

BTW, Feargus says in the video that Obsidian currently has 4 projects.

 

[One-and-a-half-Ivan]

New Obsidian RPG? Is today really Friday the 13th?
(Of course, maybe it is... for grognards =P)

What other game could it be? Occam's Razor dictates we assume any unannounced project being discussed is the one we know already exists.

BTW, Feargus says in the video that Obsidian currently has 4 projects.

Armored warfare, PoE expansion, Stormlands, Pathfinder card game?

 

[Athelas]

Wasn't Stormlands going to be a sci-fi RPG? It would be cool to know what changes they made to it.