Obsidian General Discussion Thread

[Infinitron]

It's happening

 

[santino27]

Yay, more shit instead of gameplay.

 

[Atchodas]

Someone should reveal to him that nobody reads his trash writing I kinda feel bad for the guy

Anyway PoE 3 is probably on its way at least thats what people think on obsidian forum after reading this article :

https://wccftech.com/greenberg-plea...ation-content-is-coming-from-the-new-studios/

At Obsidian, there’s the team working on The Outer Worlds, a team that’s working on Pillars, and a team working on another secret thing.

can they do a complete game that isn't so shallow, I mean this is their 3rd try on same concept they simply shouldn't be allowed to fail 3rd time , maybe this time they will actually build up from Deadfire and not start from scratch again like they did with Deadfire

 

[Turuko]

can't wait for the Fæmpyrs

 

[Atchodas]

Actually funny thing I learned in derpfire because of voice acting was that " Pwgra " is actually spelled "poogra" idk if it made me dumber in the long run I guess time will tell

 

[Quillon]

 

[LESS T_T]

The Obsidian Skyrim clone is real!

New job posting for Senior Technical Artist has references to "open world", not surprisingly: https://www.obsidian.net/jobs/open-positions/art/1140-senior-technical-artist-houdini

Strong understanding of the performance implications of open world development on consoles and PCs

(There was a reference in posting for Lead Sound Designer too.)

 

[vortex]

Will Boyarsky work on this new open world IP or will he work on POE III?

Maybe he will work with Sawyer.

 

[Sailor Woedica]

Will Boyarsky work on this new open world IP or will he work on POE III?

Maybe he will work with Sawyer.

The open world IP is POE III!

 

[Quillon]

Will Boyarsky work on this new open world IP or will he work on POE III?

Maybe he will work with Sawyer.

The open world IP is POE III!

Path of Exile open world RPG HYPE!!

 

[vortex]

Path of Exile open world RPG HYPE!!

At least it will have violent combat scenarios.

 

[Akratus]

I just started a new Fallout: New Vegas playthrough with an unarmed build, and the character is black. The first terminal I hacked had as it's password "Slavery." You think Obsidian is trying to say something there?

 

[Modron]

You're reading too much into things like those people who were up in arms about the nuxcom mission name generator (i use that loosely since it's just a combo of names chosen from two sets of lists) produced a mission called Crystal Night in one player's game once. My favorite mission name in nuxcom that I personally encountered was operation Hot Mother.

 

[Nano]

https://www.resetera.com/threads/microsoft-should-buy-bioware-from-ea.144616/

Public opinion of Obsidian still seems to be very positive. People seem convinced that Obsidian still has talented veteran staff and that BioWare no longer does, even though BioWare has way more veteran writers still working there than Obsidian.

Does Obsidian even have any veteran writers left at all? I'm pretty sure all of them that worked on New Vegas and earlier are no longer in the company.

 

[vortex]

I don't think that will happen. But something has to change at Bioware. Lead developers are leaving in the middle the projects. BW needs to reconstruct, to be reborn.

 

[CyberModuled]

BW needs to reconstruct, to be reborn.

I'm sure EA will think of a way to name another one of their live networking services "Bioware" the same way "Origin Systems" was for Origin.

 

[Trashos]

Goddamn PoE, the series so autistic and balanced they created an entire detailed setting from scratch only to have everything be basically generic. Fampyrs...

The SINGLE original idea in the whole setting is the artificial Gods, but they TOTALLY GIMP EVEN THAT by failing to write a specific, compelling motive for the creation of those Gods. Unless I really missed something, the Gods are there merely because of concern that people need Gods in order to be moral. There's logic to that concern, but it's far too subtle for a fantasy computer game. You need to paint in brighter colours. It could've been a good underpinning theme, but it should not have been the surface-level in-universe explanation as well.

If they'd instead had that there are real Gods, but they're Lovecraftian horrors of madness and unreality, and the Engwithans created their artificial Gods to distract people from those real Gods - to spiritually protect them - everything would have felt so much better. That's not a complex idea, it's basically Warhammer 40k's Emperor vs Chaos Gods. It's also a sort of inverse Gnosticism I suppose. It first occurred to me when the entropy God, Rymyrgand, had me thinking at one point in PoE2 that he originated from outside Eora, and could thus not have been made by the Engwithans.

The theme of morality needing religion, or objective truth needing a single truly objective observer (a God), or creation needing an Uncaused Cause (a God) and so on - whatever it was they were aiming for, that would still have been present in the games. But it would've been restricted to the underlying thematic level where it belongs, rather than being explicit. The lovecraftian Gods would've symbolised the atheist's lack of moral foundation, or the chaotic philosophy of the postmodernist, or the decadence of a society with no fear of divine punishment, or primordial chaos that defies causality rather than initiating it - you get the idea.

The antagonist of PoE1, the guy with the antler headdress - he wouldn't be talking about those themes, he'd he talking about evil monstrous Gods and the need to protect those less mentally strong than himself, even if deceit is necessary to do it. You would have an actual moral quandary - have the advanced nations of modern Eora become strong enough to cope with the truth? Instead PoE had a basically pointless lie that can be ended mostly harmlessly, a debate so one-sided they ended up writing Eothas as inevitably settling it in favour of truth in PoE2.

It's like they were close to something very interesting, but they were themselves just too liberal, too estranged from religious attitudes, too agnostic-atheist to get it. And it's ironic, they write this stuff about gods being needed to have meaning or moral motive or whatever, but they themselves couldn't think of a solid, compelling motive for the Engwithans to have made the Gods.

Wow, what an interesting post!

It would have been cool as fuck if the PoE team had pulled off a Nitzchean "If we kill God, then what?". Maybe what you are saying is true, and they didn't have the personnel to pull it off*. Or maybe it is as George said, and the meat of the matter was lost in all the mandatory collaboration. But yeah, it went nowhere for me.


*Pull it off without coming up with a new political system that feels obliged to murder 1/3 of its own citizens, and without installing surveillance cameras everywhere. Thank you.

 

[Bester]

https://www.resetera.com/threads/microsoft-should-buy-bioware-from-ea.144616/

Public opinion of Obsidian still seems to be very positive. People seem convinced that Obsidian still has talented veteran staff and that BioWare no longer does, even though BioWare has way more veteran writers still working there than Obsidian.

Does Obsidian even have any veteran writers left at all? I'm pretty sure all of them that worked on New Vegas and earlier are no longer in the company.

It's the same opinion here on the codex. Cucks gonna cuck.

 

[Nano]

Duraframe300
Mass Effect 1 writers still at BioWare: Lukas Kristjanson, Mac Walters, Patrick Weekes. That's 3/5 of the writers on the team.
Dragon Age Origins writers still at BioWare: Sheryl Chee, Mary Kirby (and Lukas Kristjanson again). 3/8 writers.

Alpha Protocol writers still at Obsidian: N/A. 0/5 writers.
Fallout New Vegas writers still at Obsidian: N/A. 0/6 writers (including those listed under "additional writing").

 

[Duraframe300]

Duraframe300
Mass Effect 1 writers still at BioWare: Lukas Kristjanson, Mac Walters, Patrick Weekes. That's 3/5 of the writers on the team.
Dragon Age Origins writers still at BioWare: Sheryl Chee, Mary Kirby (and Lukas Kristjanson again). 3/8 writers.

Alpha Protocol writers still at Obsidian: N/A. 0/5 writers.
Fallout New Vegas writers still at Obsidian: N/A. 0/6 writers (including those listed under "additional writing").

Thank you.

Not entirly (but mostly) correct though. Matt McLean (who wrote AP's e-mails for example) and Sawyer (of course) are still at Obsidian. (Unless I missed something in Matt's case.) Aside from a few area designers that were also involved in the writing process.

Also they still haven't gotten rid of Sheryl Chee and Mary Kirby? Sheesh.

 

[Nano]

Matt McLean

Left Obsidian. MCA post: https://rpgcodex.net/forums/index.p...tions-and-deadfire.123110/page-5#post-5728891

Also they still haven't gotten rid of Sheryl Chee and Mary Kirby?

Did I miss something? What reason would they have for firing them?

 

[Duraframe300]

Matt McLean

Left Obsidian. MCA post: https://rpgcodex.net/forums/index.php?threads/has-your-opinion-of-obsidian-changed-after-avellone’s-revelations-and-deadfire.123110/page-5#post-5728891

Also they still haven't gotten rid of Sheryl Chee and Mary Kirby?

Did I miss something? What reason would they have for firing them?

Thanks!

They are both horrible imo. But, ymmv. (Compared to other people that left Bioware)

 

[ScrotumBroth]

I've burried PoE feelings in concrete and then G frickin Zeits comes out of nowhere and throws a curved jackhammer...

I want a teleport to alternate reality where he and MCA got a free reign on PoE writing, with Josh and Eric tied down in Alaskan nuclear bunker until project is complete.

 

[Harry Easter]

They are both horrible imo. But, ymmv. (Compared to other people that left Bioware)

What did they do?

 

[Roguey]

They are both horrible imo. But, ymmv. (Compared to other people that left Bioware)

What did they do?

Mary is responsible for writing Ser Cauthrien, Sten, and the majority of Loghain Mac Tir. She also wrote the Landsmeet quest line and large sections of the Chant of Light.

In Dragon Age II, she is responsible for writing Merrill[2] and Varric Tethras.

She wrote Vivienne and Varric Tethras in Dragon Age: Inquisition.[3] She also wrote, along with Sylvia Feketekuty, the mutually-exclusive quests In Hushed Whispers and Champions of the Just.[4] Mary wrote In Hushed Whispers.[5]

Sheryl Chee was the writer for Dog, Leliana, Wynne, Oghren and Cullen.[1]

She was also responsible for the Magi Origin, as well as the Broken Circle and Urn of Sacred Ashes quest lines.[2]

Dragon Age: Origins - Awakening
She wrote Oghren, Sigrun, and Velanna.[3]

Dragon Age II
Sheryl Chee was the main writer for Isabela.

Dragon Age: Inquisition
She is the writer for Blackwall and Leliana,[4] as well as for all multiplayer characters.[5]

They're not great writers, but as far as Bioware goes, I wouldn't call them bad.

Also Avellone likes Chee.