Game News Alphaturd Receives Some Polishing

[Arcanoix]

Don't worry guys, with NWN2 Obshit will have the proper time to polish the game and deliver what they're capable off unlike KotOR2 which LucasArts basically forced them to release unfinished.

Don't worry guys, with Alpha Protocol Obshit will have the proper time to polish the game and deliver what they're capable off unlike NWN2 which Atari basically forced them to release unfinished.

Don't worry guys, with New Vegas Obshit will have the proper time to polish the game and deliver what they're capable off unlike Alpha Protocol which Sega forced them to release unfinished.

Don't worry guys, with Dungeon Siege 3 Obshit will have the proper time to polish the game and deliver what they're capable off unlike New Vegas which Bethesda forced them to release unfinished.

I still don't understand everyone's issues with Obsidian's games. Maybe I'm just lucky but I've never had a major problem with them. Then again my rig is better than everybody's here. The only problem I've had with Obsidian would be the NWN2 Toolset shitting on me a few times what with memory leaks and random problems on my end that would erase my work, but other than that, Obsidian's content isn't anywhere near as bad as the shit BioWare has released recently. And I will say that to Gaider, Muzyka, and even Priestly's face. (fucker banned me from the forums I had been on since vanilla NWN)

Lastly, I would say Alpha Protocol ties with Dragon Age because of just how shitty Awakening was. Honestly I'm more fond of Obsidian than I am of both BioWare and Blizzard at this point, as BioWare and Blizzard keep milking the same old cash cows that they've been milking for 5 years or so now. Obsidian is probably the only company I know of doing something both old and new with the RPG genre. I mean other companies these days have limited the role's you play to simply damage dealer, healer, or a fucking tank. (protector)

 

[Silellak]

True statement. Lucasarts did force them to release it unfinished. They literally forced them to release it 1 year earlier than planned.

Untrue, there were other reasons for the bugginess, IE that Atari gave them a beta version on the NWN engine to customize.

I've never heard a source for either of these. Do you happen to have one?

I was always under the impression that Lucasarts gave Obsidian 12 months for KotoR2, and Obsidian foolishly agreed, then simply bit off more than they could reasonably chew given the insane timeline.

Obsidian is probably the only company I know of doing something both old and new with the RPG genre.

What exactly are they doing that's "both old and new in the RPG genre"?

 

[Overweight Manatee]

True statement. Lucasarts did force them to release it unfinished. They literally forced them to release it 1 year earlier than planned.

Untrue, there were other reasons for the bugginess, IE that Atari gave them a beta version on the NWN engine to customize.

I've never heard a source for either of these. Do you happen to have one?

I was always under the impression that Lucasarts gave Obsidian 12 months for KotoR2, and Obsidian foolishly agreed, then simply bit off more than they could reasonably chew given the insane timeline.

Yeah, this was my understanding as well. If when 1 year was up Obsidian was halfway done and Lucasarts forced them to release it I'm 95% sure there would be a huge shitstorm and Lucasarts would end up on the receiving end of a lawyer gang rape. Obsidian just overestimated what they could do in a year.

Obsidian is probably the only company I know of doing something both old and new with the RPG genre.

What exactly are they doing that's "both old and new in the RPG genre"?

Old: Making games that are reasonably interesting.
New: Making them shitty.

 

[Sceptic]

I suspect that the creativity of PS:T may have had something to do with it being low cost).

Avellone (I think it was him) pretty much said this. PST was the lower-budget bastard child and just flew under the radar. No one was paying attention to it, nobody really cared that much about it (hence the poor marketing campaign I guess) so they could do a lot of stuff in it that would've never made it through if it had been the big title that Interplay was pushing. MotB and SOZ are good examples too: they're expansions so by default they'll get less funding and less attention than a big stand-alone title.

 

[Overweight Manatee]

It sounds almost like some hacker posed as Obsidian and got Sega to host some virus-ridden patches.

 

[DragoFireheart]

So who's fault is it: OE for making the shitty patch, or Sega failing to make sure it actually fucking worked!?

 

[Silellak]

So who's fault is it: OE for making the shitty patch, or Sega failing to make sure it actually fucking worked!?

Yes.

 

[roll-a-die]

True statement. Lucasarts did force them to release it unfinished. They literally forced them to release it 1 year earlier than planned.

Untrue, there were other reasons for the bugginess, IE that Atari gave them a beta version on the NWN engine to customize.

I've never heard a source for either of these. Do you happen to have one?

I was always under the impression that Lucasarts gave Obsidian 12 months for KotoR2, and Obsidian foolishly agreed, then simply bit off more than they could reasonably chew given the insane timeline.

Yeah, this was my understanding as well. If when 1 year was up Obsidian was halfway done and Lucasarts forced them to release it I'm 95% sure there would be a huge shitstorm and Lucasarts would end up on the receiving end of a lawyer gang rape. Obsidian just overestimated what they could do in a year.

From what I can recall Lucasart's made them sign a vaguely worded contract, that allowed them(Lucasarts) to do all sorts of things. That and Lucasarts wanted to take advantage of the extra sales that KotOR 1 being released for the X-Box, 3 months before it would bring.

From what I remember hearing, Lucas Arts basically came in about 1/2 to 2/3 of the way done with the game, and said "We want the done by Christmas this year." Avalonne and co didn't want to agree, but the contract forced them to, so they went into crunch mode for the next 3 months, cut out about a 3rd of the content and managed to get a marginally finished game done.

For NwN 2, they were given, in 2004, Aurora 1.27(I think) to customize, and they weren't given the code for the patches that came after 1.27. By the time NwN 2 was released Aurora was on version 1.85, which was a VASTLY superior version.

This is all from what I can recall, it may be wrong. I can't really find the sources anymore, 5 years has made me lose a bunch of bookmarks.

 

[Mangoose]

Whoever the project manager for Obsidian should still be shot, though. He still agreed to said contracts and also doesn't know how to delegate proper resources to QA. Yes, software and especially game development often turns into a clusterfuck of crunch at the end, but Obsidian seems to do it a lot worse.

 

[roll-a-die]

Whoever the project manager for Obsidian should still be shot, though. He still agreed to said contracts and also doesn't know how to delegate proper resources to QA. Yes, software and especially game development often turns into a clusterfuck of crunch at the end, but Obsidian seems to do it a lot worse.

Actually they don't do much worse than Bethesda on the QA and general bugginess end. In fact they often do better than Bethesda, because Bethesda tends to make games in 4 or more years. While obsidian tends to make games in 2-3.

 

[Roguey]

I've never heard a source for either of these. Do you happen to have one?

I was always under the impression that Lucasarts gave Obsidian 12 months for KotoR2, and Obsidian foolishly agreed, then simply bit off more than they could reasonably chew given the insane timeline.

I dunno if it ever had a whole two years but here's the initial announcement

According to LucasArts, The Sith Lords will be released simultaneously for the PC and Xbox in February 2005.

If I recall correctly, they bumped it up to December after it had been received so well at that year's E3. Obsidian deserves some of the blame for not being conservative enough in regards to content and features, LucasArts deserves some of it for cutting off several months from their planned agreement. And I guess Obsidian deserves some additional blame for wanting to play in the publisher-funded sandbox when they have no leverage whatsoever.

 

[Lockkaliber]

Also remember this: Obsidian offered Lucasarts to make a patch for the game several times, so they could finish it up, but Lucasarts said no. It seems pretty clear to me who's to blame for KotOR 2 being in the state it is.

 

[Mangoose]

Whoever the project manager for Obsidian should still be shot, though. He still agreed to said contracts and also doesn't know how to delegate proper resources to QA. Yes, software and especially game development often turns into a clusterfuck of crunch at the end, but Obsidian seems to do it a lot worse.

Actually they don't do much worse than Bethesda on the QA and general bugginess end. In fact they often do better than Bethesda, because Bethesda tends to make games in 4 or more years. While obsidian tends to make games in 2-3.

Well I mean QA in more than bugtesting, but also playtesting, so that there is balance between skills, balance in difficulty for the player, etc.

Secondly, my statement never mentioned the word Bethesda, Oblivious, or Failout3. Bethesda's games are shit anyways; if your QA is better than shit then it's just piss.

Besides, even Bioware has better mechanic design and game balance.

 

[Drakron]

Well I mean QA in more than bugtesting, but also playtesting, so that there is balance between skills, balance in difficulty for the player, etc.

And Bethsoft does that?

Look at Oblivion, same exploits as Morrowind and its was CLEAR their "everything scales to the player level" was broken.

Even Fallout 3 that cut on the "scaling" still had idiocy were it was very possible for a entire settlement to be wiped out due to a poorly placed spawn point.

Secondly, my statement never mentioned the word Bethesda, Oblivious, or Failout3. Bethesda's games are shit anyways; if your QA is better than shit then it's just piss.

So what? FO:NV is based on FO3 ruleset that had its exploits and they seem to be addressing them, as the booblehead "free points" idiocy, any ruleset can be broken but AT LEAST they should no be casually broken.

We ARE talking anout New Vegas you know ...

Besides, even Bioware has better mechanic design and game balance

Not really, there is no point on playing anything BUT a Soldier in ME2 as ME1 had the complain that Biotics make it "easy" ... JE system was one you could do no wrong as DA:O system is a complete and utter mess, BioWare was good when using the d20 system that is not THEIRS now is it?

 

[Mangoose]

We ARE talking anout New Vegas you know ...

No, WE are not. I was making a general statement about Obsidian's management and resource delegation to QA.

Besides, if WE were talking about NV, then why has Lucas Arts been tossed around the last few posts?

Not really, there is no point on playing anything BUT a Soldier in ME2 as ME1 had the complain that Biotics make it "easy" ... JE system was one you could do no wrong as DA:O system is a complete and utter mess, BioWare was good when using the d20 system that is not THEIRS now is it?

Keyword: Better. Not good (which is part of the point).

I really hope you're either high or drunk, or the context bus is going to hit you right about now.

 

[roll-a-die]

Whoever the project manager for Obsidian should still be shot, though. He still agreed to said contracts and also doesn't know how to delegate proper resources to QA. Yes, software and especially game development often turns into a clusterfuck of crunch at the end, but Obsidian seems to do it a lot worse.

Actually they don't do much worse than Bethesda on the QA and general bugginess end. In fact they often do better than Bethesda, because Bethesda tends to make games in 4 or more years. While obsidian tends to make games in 2-3.

Well I mean QA in more than bugtesting, but also playtesting, so that there is balance between skills, balance in difficulty for the player, etc.

I was speaking in the same general context. Note the separation of QA and general bugginess. QA is quality assurance. General bugginess is the amount of bugs featured in the game.

Bethesda completely fails at this key aspect(QA and bug testing). The balance between skills is completely fried, as is balance with enemies. Hey I just leveled alchemy & mercantile to level 100 after a trip around the cyrodiil making potions out of everything thing I could find and then selling them. As I'm a mage, alchemy and mercantile are some of my class skills which means I leveled up 14 times to a total of 16. Only OH SHIT, my enemies have leveled as if combat is the only thing that matters, and are now wearing gear 2 tiers above what I have. And have master level spells, wait, reload, I'll just avoid sleeping to level up and everything will be alright.

About the only thing I will complement bethesda for QA wise, is environment work. Which is almost always excellent where the devs have actually not left it to a random map generator.

Secondly, my statement never mentioned the word Bethesda, Oblivious, or Failout3. Bethesda's games are shit anyways; if your QA is better than shit then it's just piss.

Depends, they are about equal, but slightly below Troika in terms of quality of QA(IE, Valve is #1 and Bioware is #6 while Troika is #10 and Obsidian is #11). And slightly above them in terms of ranking bugginess(Once again #1 is Nintendo while Troika is #20 and Obsidian is #18).

Besides, even Bioware has better mechanic design and game balance.

Debatable, while both have gone in different directions with consolization, I very much prefer newer Beth games to newer Bio games.

 

[MetalCraze]

So who's fault is it: OE for making the shitty patch, or Sega failing to make sure it actually fucking worked!?

It's Sega's fault of course. Everyone just tries to fuck poor Obsidian. This is just another proof!
As one retard wrote above they totally never have contracts where they sign up to 1 year long dev cycles. All publishers are evil and just force OE's products out of the door before Obsidian even has a chance to implement game into their game!

 

[Andyman Messiah]

Skyway, isn't it about time you turned into a symbol?

 

[DragoFireheart]

So who's fault is it: OE for making the shitty patch, or Sega failing to make sure it actually fucking worked!?

It's Sega's fault of course. Everyone just tries to fuck poor Obsidian. This is just another proof!
As one retard wrote above they totally never have contracts where they sign up to 1 year long dev cycles. All publishers are evil and just force OE's products out of the door before Obsidian even has a chance to implement game into their game!

Sounds like horseshit to me. OE fucked up yet again, while Sega acting retard is nothing new.

I really fucking hate Sega. Sega CD, 32X, the shitty sonic games: the list of their moronic choices goes on. Bunch a dumbfucks.

 

[Pablosdog]

Shadowrun was pretty cool though, as was the Shining games. Genesis had many great titles.

 

[DragoFireheart]

Shadowrun was pretty cool though, as was the Shining games. Genesis had many great titles.

That was the old Sega.