Interview Dungeon Siege III Interview

[VentilatorOfDoom]

Tags: Dungeon Siege III; Obsidian Entertainment

<p>Gamebanshee talked to Square Enix's David Hoffman mostly about their collaboration with Obsidian Entertainment for <strong>Dungeon Siege III</strong>.</p>
<blockquote>
<p><span class="question"><strong>GB: Was the Dungeon Siege IP specifically what you were looking for initially? Or were you originally hammering out ideas to see what would be the best fit for a partnership? </strong><br /><br /> <span class="answer">David: We did not talk about Dungeon Siege originally. Obsidian had &ndash; I don&rsquo;t know how much they want to me say, but &ndash; they had a very, very cool original design, and I was personally pretty excited about it. And that&rsquo;s what we were talking about at first, and then it just kind of naturally evolved into an opportunity that came about within Square between Square and GPG to acquire the Dungeon Siege IP, and it seemed almost like a natural fit to say, &ldquo;You know what? The original idea is fantastic, but I think we can mitigate risk and have a lot of success if we instead build Dungeon Siege III." <br /><br /> And to Obsidian&rsquo;s point of view, I think they were very excited about either/or. And because either/or fit their proprietary engine and what it was really designed to do, which was to build an action RPG with a dungeon-crawling emphasis. </span></span></p>
</blockquote>
<p><span class="question"><span class="answer"><a href="http://www.gamebanshee.com/interviews/101764-dungeon-siege-iii.html" target="_blank">Read it here.</a></span></span></p>
<p><span class="question"><span class="answer"><br /></span></span></p>
<p>Spotted at: <a href="http://www.gamebanshee.com/news/101765-gb-feature-dungeon-siege-iii-interview.html">GB</a></p>

 

[Xor]

Publishers are probably reluctant to partner with Obsidian on original IPs after AP, but Obsidian's sequels to established IPs usually do well, so that makes a lot of sense.

It does worry me that Obsidian won't be able to do any more original stuff, though.

 

[IronicNeurotic]

Once we came to an agreement in terms of what we wanted to do, and what their strengths were, and how it would work in an action RPG, I informed Square Japan. We actually had some high-level executives including Wada-san himself come out here, sit down with the team and the executives here at Obsidian, and really just kind of just talk about it and about how we make RPGs versus how the west makes them. We were really interested to compare notes on that. Wada-san even made the comment that Obsidian seemed like Square did in its earlier days.

Buahahahahha

Nice to see you still remember how the company was before you fucked it over Wada.



@Xor: They are currently working on two original products.

 

[Azrael the cat]

Obsidian's only difficulty is finding studios willing to undestand and commit to segmented marketing - sure, give Obsidian less cash than they give Bioware, but the publisher should be able to reap a decent enough reward to make them commercial.

I am not at all interested in DS3 aside from being glad that Obsidian has enough business sense to mix in some cash-milkers with their good products. I also think that DS3 - IF it remains a hack-n-slash like the IP's predecessors - is a retarded idea for a cash-milker for Obsidian. It just seems to put them way too close to the firing line of Bioware and Bethesda, who they can't hope to compete with in mainstream IGN crowd terms. An example of a GREAT pragmatic 'slamdunk' cash-milker game by Obsidian is NV - a clear marketing angle due to their very marketable experience with the first 2 games, and the fact that the 1st game's worst parts seem tailor-made for fitting Obsidian's strengths. Add the availability of free fanmods to rip off, and the huge popularity of NV and you have a great little earner to get the coffers in good shape. DS3 just doesn't seem to have that obvious financial appeal.

For me, the jury is out on Obsidian's approach. They'll never match the game-for-game quality of Troika's 2and a half greatest-of-all-time games (ToEE is the half, as it's a great system, and great when you come back only expecting a dungeon crawl, but it was released and marketed so badly - people expected a PS:T or BG2 style epic, and instead got a dungeon-crawler (albeit one with fucking awesome mechanics_.

Will Obsidian ever match that? Unlikely. BUT they've got a good chance of surviving much much longer than Troika. Already they've produced 2 excellent games in my option - nothing in the same league as Arcanum or Bloodlines, but excellent nonetheless, and 1 good game, and still going strong with games in the pipeline. Ig they survive to make another 10 games, of which another 3 are good and 2 are excellent - leaving a solid 50% of utter stinkers, so I'm not cocksucking here) that gives them an overall record of 4 excellent games (still less than Arcanum and Bloodlines, so 'excellent', not 'all-time-leader', and 4 good games.

That kind of record would easily earn them a decent mention in the history of crpgs, especially compared to the era they exist in. Weighing (with an extrapolated 10 games to come, so 13 overiall): 4 excellent, 4 good and 5 shithouse v Troika's 2 all-time-greats and 1 good game doesn't lead to an obvious decision about superiority. Obviously Troika are best in terms of their greatest game, or their greatest 3 games, but in terms of total numbers the strategy of lots of cash-driven shite with the occasional genuinely good game could lead to a different kind of greatness: Troika's beautiful candle in the wind, or Obsidian's strategy of eating a bunch of diamonds combined with ultra-laxative, leading turds everything except that some have diamond inside.

So I readily accept that Obsidian can make shite games, and their best games don't match their Black Isle stuff. But it's nice having a reasonably hope that these guys might last another 10-15 years or so, and put out a decent amount of good (and shithouse) games during that time.

 

[Serious_Business]

tell me more

 

[jiujitsu]

I saw the words: Action RPG, console, and Square-Enix.

 

[Radisshu]

I saw the words: Action RPG, console, and Square-Enix.

It's Dungeon Siege, so who gives a fuck? I mean it's not like they're ruining some great franchise.

 

[Crooked Bee]

Haters gonna hate. Still, it's one of the very few games this year I'm really looking forward to. Weird, I know.

 

[J_C]

Haters gonna hate. Still, it's one of the very few games this year I'm really looking forward to. Weird, I know.

 

[IronicNeurotic]

Haters gonna hate. Still, it's one of the very few games this year I'm really looking forward to. Weird, I know.

 

[Jaesun]

I'm still cautiously optimistic on DS III. More interested in IWD III to be honest, except for the shitty WOW 4th ED D&D. :/

 

[Reptilian Shapeshifter]

I saw the words: Action RPG, console, and Square-Enix.

It's Dungeon Siege, so who gives a fuck? I mean it's not like they're ruining some great franchise.

All they have to do is make it so the game doesn't play itself. That alone would be a huge improvement.

The first two were basically exercises in pot/barrel-smashing for OCDs.

 

[flushfire]

What's news on the game's MP? Is Obsidian sticking to changing what's tried and tested?

 

[IronicNeurotic]

What's news on the game's MP? Is Obsidian sticking to changing what's tried and tested?

We only know that there are seperate MP/SP charachters. And you can't have 2 of the same class in 1 co-op game for balance and immershun/narrative reasons.

 

[Metro]

An Action RPG that plays like an Action RPG?!?! What madness is this?!?!

 

[flushfire]

What's news on the game's MP? Is Obsidian sticking to changing what's tried and tested?

We only know that there are seperate MP/SP charachters. And you can't have 2 of the same class in 1 co-op game for balance and immershun/narrative reasons.

oh so they're insisting on sodomizing themselves.

 

[skuphundaku]

Ig they survive to make another 10 games, of which another 3 are good and 2 are excellent - leaving a solid 50% of utter stinkers, so I'm not cocksucking here) that gives them an overall record of 4 excellent games (still less than Arcanum and Bloodlines, so 'excellent', not 'all-time-leader', and 4 good games.

You seem to be working under the assumption that Obsidian released 10 games. They released just 6 (4 if you don't count the expansions...) and they have their 7th (5th) in the pipeline:

KoTOR 2 - good but it could have been much more
NWN2 - acceptable, far better than the original NWN though
NWN2: MotB - fantastic
NWN2: SoZ - haven't played it yet
Alpha Protocol - underappreciated, some things could have been much better
Fallout: New Vegas - haven't played it yet
DS3 (work in progress)

The number 10 present in all the press hype is, most likely, because they count all the games their group worked on since the beginning, which means that they count Fallout 2, Icewind Dale, Planescape: Torment and Icewind Dale 2. But it's pretty disingenuous to count these as Obsidian games. By that standard, you could just go ahead and count Fallout as a Troika game... and the balance would hang even more in Troika's favor then.

 

[IronicNeurotic]

What's news on the game's MP? Is Obsidian sticking to changing what's tried and tested?

We only know that there are seperate MP/SP charachters. And you can't have 2 of the same class in 1 co-op game for balance and immershun/narrative reasons.

oh so they're insisting on sodomizing themselves.

? What? How

That system is used in countless games. Its basically what Diablo2 does. (Well naturally except the second part)

 

[IronicNeurotic]

The number 10 present in all the press hype is, most likely, because they count all the games their group worked on since the beginning, which means that they count Fallout 2, Icewind Dale, Planescape: Torment and Icewind Dale 2.

No, it just counts also the cancelled games.

 

[flushfire]

What's news on the game's MP? Is Obsidian sticking to changing what's tried and tested?

We only know that there are seperate MP/SP charachters. And you can't have 2 of the same class in 1 co-op game for balance and immershun/narrative reasons.

oh so they're insisting on sodomizing themselves.

? What? How

That system is used in countless games. Its basically what Diablo2 does. (Well naturally except the second part)

 

[Sannom]

I also think that DS3 - IF it remains a hack-n-slash like the IP's predecessors - is a retarded idea for a cash-milker for Obsidian. It just seems to put them way too close to the firing line of Bioware and Bethesda, who they can't hope to compete with in mainstream IGN crowd terms. An example of a GREAT pragmatic 'slamdunk' cash-milker game by Obsidian is NV - a clear marketing angle due to their very marketable experience with the first 2 games, and the fact that the 1st game's worst parts seem tailor-made for fitting Obsidian's strengths. Add the availability of free fanmods to rip off, and the huge popularity of NV and you have a great little earner to get the coffers in good shape. DS3 just doesn't seem to have that obvious financial appeal.

DS3 hardly fits the definition of a slamdunk though : new engine, completely different mechanics and gameplay (they went from a BG/Diablo hybrid to a bona fide action RPG, with direct input and only one controllable character), a lot of work on the lore and backgound, etc. This is the first sequel made by Obsidian that has nothing in common with its predecessors except for the name (hence why people are wary of the multiplayer, they imagine a Diablo-like experience, while it will more lifely be a BG2 experience, except playable this time). They really should have rebooted the numbering of the franchise instead of going with the '3".

I'm still cautiously optimistic on DS III. More interested in IWD III to be honest, except for the shitty WOW 4th ED D&D. :/

That's the good part of not being a D&D player : I don't care about the rules . Although I must say I was kind of disappointed by the use of the 3rd edition rules in later games, I missed my old AD&D, even if I realized that those rules were a lot clearer than what existed before (linear progression of the bonuses linked to the characteristics, clearer save system, etc.)

 

[IronicNeurotic]

What's news on the game's MP? Is Obsidian sticking to changing what's tried and tested?

We only know that there are seperate MP/SP charachters. And you can't have 2 of the same class in 1 co-op game for balance and immershun/narrative reasons.

oh so they're insisting on sodomizing themselves.

? What? How

That system is used in countless games. Its basically what Diablo2 does. (Well naturally except the second part)

Still whats the problem? If classes are balanced to support each other/do combinations in battle I'm all for it.

In the end you will probably manage 1 build of each class anyway.

 

[flushfire]

sure, only problem is that before players get to the point of managing 1 of each class, they'd have to be hooked into the game first. how will that happen if you're forced to play a different class bec. you can't find a game where your favorite can enter? what if you only want to focus on one character to get to high-end game content faster but you can't because everyone's playing that class? what if a lot of people loved a particular class in SP and wanted to play that class in MP a week after release, but can't because mostly everyone wants to play that class?

players will give up looking for games rather than roll other classes just to get into games, I can assure you of that.

 

[Arcanoix]

I think that DSIII is primarily being made to show off Obsidian's excellent Onyx engine. If a game engine is good, it can be used in the future to make multiple games for multiple franchises, curbing costs and increasing efficiency. The only thing I can say negatively about DSIII is that - like DS2 and Witcher 2 - we won't have access to the engine tools ourselves, but this could be a good thing as well.

If an engine is so good that it's only used internally (example: WoWEdit) chances are it's world-class. Maybe Obsidian will open up licensing opportunities for indie developers/modders? That's profitable these days. Maybe they will even let applicants use it? Time will tell.

EDIT: Let me see ask if I can say something about the Onyx engine that I don't think the trailers showed yet, I will re-edit this post when/if allowed.

EDIT: Nevermind they're all most likely at GDC and I don't want to bug them, so I'll theorize - with a grain of salt and in support of IWD3/New Ultima - it's possible for the Onyx engine to take on a top-down isometric view. The recent trailers of DSIII do not show those camera angles, but I've seen it for myself.

 

[Deleted member 7219]

I don't mind about Dungeon Siege 3, since Obsidian just gave us Fallout: New Vegas which is proof they can deliver good story-based games with skill checks. One team can go into hack 'n slashes, the other team can carry on making good RPGs.