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Anthony Davis leaving Obsidian

GarfunkeL

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Well now, this is a rousing thread! Good luck in your future endeavors, Mr.Davis!
 

Wunderpurps

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SCO said:
But they used it, that's still worse. Imagine yourself wanting to get the value of a stat and, oh, you can't. You have to use a state machine or iterations. And there is no iteration. And the state machines the engine has are
1) dialog, needs input by the user to progress so constantly stopping stopping stopping, clearly unsuitable for calculations.
2) a nasty nasty hack with AI scripts and using SetAIScript to goto another, that's far too slow because that function waits for the end of the round anyway.

Or imagine you want to use a global to set something in a AI script block - and you can't because there are no free variables in bgscript. Only thing you can do with a global is to compare it to a constant.

Why not go with NWN II or is that even worse? The horrible content is the worst part of that game, one step away from deciding which party member dies horribly when the spaceship blows up.
 

SCO

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Oppss, just noticed what you really meant. Seems like my intuition is that everyone that was at BIS ended up on Obsidian and Mr Davis was one of those. My bad.
 

Aldebaran

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Anthony Davis said:
I probably won't ever complete the first tier thanks to the Star Trek license being so hard to get.

It's for your own safety: Trek fans will not tolerate the slightest imperfection, and will not hesitate to throw fellow trek fans into the nearest warp core if they bear even the slightest responsibility. V'ger not properly to scale with a Tholian? May god have mercy on your soul. Don't worry, probably only half of the death threats are definitely serious.

On an unrelated note, have you ever played DS3, or another game you have worked on, in your spare time? I have heard a lot of people in the industry say that they can't play their own games. Quite a few people in the movie industry seem to have the same problem, and I have never really understood it. The common excuse used is that the insider is forced to dissect every mistake made while they play, but I can't imagine myself in their position, as I attempt to do that without my insider knowledge.

More importantly though, you mentioned that Obsidian occasionally browses RPGCodex. Is it for a few laughs at the degeneracy of it all, or do you search here every so often for a few well argued points? I hope it is a bit of both. I have always considered that even Bethesda higher ups still browse here every now and then, even if it is only a warm up for their daily exercise of laughing all the way to the bank.
 

Volourn

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"But they used it, that's still worse."

Obsidian never used the IE.


As for DS3 being a success. Nah. It would depend ultimiately ond efintiion iof 'success' but 820k sold for a game/company trying to be AAA is just not enough in 2011 with 100+ employees that took 2-3 years to develop. Also, game companies tend not to care about long term sales so that's irrelevant.

I dion't know how one can can claim 820k sales a success when the company has 2 multi million games released (NWN2 and KOTOR2) plus a game in Fo:LV that sold in the heighbourhood of 5mil.

Plus, DS3 is one fo the worst games ever made along with AP. Now, NWN2 and KOTOR2 were good games and FO:LV is pretty damn awesome too. DS3 is the opposite of that in every way. Sorry.
 

Shannow

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Aldebaran said:
More importantly though, you mentioned that Obsidian occasionally browses RPGCodex. Is it for a few laughs at the degeneracy of it all, or do you search here every so often for a few well argued points? I hope it is a bit of both.
Well, he failed his codex lore check and didn't even know the stock response to:
"What is an RPG?"
"A game where you play a role, have stats and an inventory."
"So Halo is an RPG? You play a role, you have stats and different kinds of weapons to pick up (=inventory)..."

Considering we have that kind of stuff in some variation (as seen ITT) at least every 2-3 months and an RPG dev should be interested in those kinds of threads, that doesn't suggest more than occasional browsing (probably mostly of topics about OE games) on their part. I don't blame them, though *shrug*
 

Aldebaran

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Shannow said:
Aldebaran said:
More importantly though, you mentioned that Obsidian occasionally browses RPGCodex. Is it for a few laughs at the degeneracy of it all, or do you search here every so often for a few well argued points? I hope it is a bit of both.
Well, he failed his codex lore check and didn't even know the stock response to:
"What is an RPG?"
"A game where you play a role, have stats and an inventory."
"So Halo is an RPG? You play a role, you have stats and different kinds of weapons to pick up (=inventory)..."

Considering we have that kind of stuff in some variation (as seen ITT) at least every 2-3 months and an RPG dev should be interested in those kinds of threads, that doesn't suggest more than occasional browsing (probably mostly of topics about OE games) on their part. I don't blame them, though *shrug*

To be fair, the only proper answer to that question is a 48 page debate that ends where it starts.
 

IronicNeurotic

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Volourn said:

As for DS3 being a success. Nah. It would depend ultimiately ond efintiion iof 'success' but 820k sold for a game/company trying to be AAA is just not enough in 2011 with 100+ employees that took 2-3 years to develop. Also, game companies tend not to care about long term sales so that's irrelevant.

Volourn displaying is wisdom of making shit up. Wada himself could come here, announce DSIV and call DSIII a sales success and Voli still would argue its not.
 

thesoup

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Mr. Davis, can you tell us something about that RPG Obsidian is developing (or rather, pitching, according to wikipedia) that we know nothing about? At least tell us if it's the kind of a game people here would like.

Also, best of luck in Texas. :salute:
 

Anthony Davis

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Volourn said:
"But they used it, that's still worse."

Obsidian never used the IE.

Technically that's not true. Aurora, which Bioware developed for NWN 1 is almost entirely the old IE engine, right down to the variable names and class names. They re-did the renderer and called it Aurora.

We took Aurora, re-did the renderer again, calling it Electron, and re-did several of the other systems too. I'm quite familar with the old IE engine and I would say that Aurora and Electron are at LEAST cousins in terms of relationships.

Volourn said:
As for DS3 being a success. Nah. It would depend ultimiately ond efintiion iof 'success' but 820k sold for a game/company trying to be AAA is just not enough in 2011 with 100+ employees that took 2-3 years to develop. Also, game companies tend not to care about long term sales so that's irrelevant.

I dion't know how one can can claim 820k sales a success when the company has 2 multi million games released (NWN2 and KOTOR2) plus a game in Fo:LV that sold in the heighbourhood of 5mil.

Plus, DS3 is one fo the worst games ever made along with AP. Now, NWN2 and KOTOR2 were good games and FO:LV is pretty damn awesome too. DS3 is the opposite of that in every way. Sorry.

I don't care if you liked DS3 or not, but it most assuredly was a success.

I know how much Square shelled out to Obsidian to make the game, and even if they spent that exact same amount on marketing, which I doubt, the game still made multi-millions for Square.
 

Anthony Davis

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Aldebaran said:
Anthony Davis said:
I probably won't ever complete the first tier thanks to the Star Trek license being so hard to get.

It's for your own safety: Trek fans will not tolerate the slightest imperfection, and will not hesitate to throw fellow trek fans into the nearest warp core if they bear even the slightest responsibility. V'ger not properly to scale with a Tholian? May god have mercy on your soul. Don't worry, probably only half of the death threats are definitely serious.

On an unrelated note, have you ever played DS3, or another game you have worked on, in your spare time? I have heard a lot of people in the industry say that they can't play their own games. Quite a few people in the movie industry seem to have the same problem, and I have never really understood it. The common excuse used is that the insider is forced to dissect every mistake made while they play, but I can't imagine myself in their position, as I attempt to do that without my insider knowledge.

More importantly though, you mentioned that Obsidian occasionally browses RPGCodex. Is it for a few laughs at the degeneracy of it all, or do you search here every so often for a few well argued points? I hope it is a bit of both. I have always considered that even Bethesda higher ups still browse here every now and then, even if it is only a warm up for their daily exercise of laughing all the way to the bank.

It is hard to go back and play games you have worked.

Of the games I have worked on, I have played:
KOTOR 2 100%
NWN2 75%
MOTB 50%
SOZ 100%
AP 75%
DS3 100%

I have played all of FO:NV, but I haven't finished all the DLC's yet.


As for reading the Codex, it is a lot for the laughs, and some for the grains of truth/well argued points. Personally, I find most of the good and interesting points to be in the LP threads. I know a LOT of game developers read LP threads and you guys have some good ones.
 

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Anthony Davis said:
Volourn said:
As for DS3 being a success. Nah. It would depend ultimiately ond efintiion iof 'success' but 820k sold for a game/company trying to be AAA is just not enough in 2011 with 100+ employees that took 2-3 years to develop. Also, game companies tend not to care about long term sales so that's irrelevant.

I dion't know how one can can claim 820k sales a success when the company has 2 multi million games released (NWN2 and KOTOR2) plus a game in Fo:LV that sold in the heighbourhood of 5mil.

Plus, DS3 is one fo the worst games ever made along with AP. Now, NWN2 and KOTOR2 were good games and FO:LV is pretty damn awesome too. DS3 is the opposite of that in every way. Sorry.

I don't care if you liked DS3 or not, but it most assuredly was a success.

I know how much Square shelled out to Obsidian to make the game, and even if they spent that exact same amount on marketing, which I doubt, the game still made multi-millions for Square.
Thanks for clearing this, maybe Volourn will shut his mouth now. Oh wait, we are talking about Volly here, who doesn't believe to anyone, not even a developer, or a publisher. If the Square head honcho himself would say that the game was a success, Volly would still find it a lie anyway.
 

Renegen

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Glad to hear DSIII was a success, all the best to Obsidian, and to Timegate as well. I have to say that Kohan was the first game I ever bought online. I played the demo that I wanted it so bad I made my first online purchase, and the only for many years to come.
 

fizzelopeguss

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Anthony Davis said:
fizzelopeguss said:
Anthony Davis said:
See, I believe in my heart of hearts that Obsidian is due for huge success.

NV wasn't that? i read it had monstrously high sales figures, bethesda's biggest opening until this weeks skyrim.

And can you give us a very rough platform breakdown (tl;dr how did the pc version sell)

FO:NV was a critical success for Obsidian and financial success for Bethesda. They own the rights to the property.

Obsidian was the developer, we were paid to make the game and that was it.

Well that's certainly dissapointing.
 

Jaesun

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the above said:
Wow, so Obsidian didn't get any cut from the sales???

One would assume if Obsidian does another "fallout game with a Bethesda Engine" maybe Fergus can negotiate a better contract with them....
 

Anthony Davis

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the above said:
Wow, so Obsidian didn't get any cut from the sales???

No, that was not part of the contract.

It was however an honor and a pleasure for everyone at Obsidian to be associated with Fallout, and for many at Obsidian it was a chance to finish some thoughts and work that began years ago at Black Isle.
 

Anthony Davis

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Jaesun said:
the above said:
Wow, so Obsidian didn't get any cut from the sales???

One would assume if Obsidian does another "fallout game with a Bethesda Engine" maybe Fergus can negotiate a better contract with them....

I cannot speak for Obsidian obviously (someone should really change my avatar title) but I would guess that Obsidian would love the chance to work with Bethesda again.
 

Crooked Bee

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Anthony Davis said:
As for reading the Codex, it is a lot for the laughs, and some for the grains of truth/well argued points. Personally, I find most of the good and interesting points to be in the LP threads. I know a LOT of game developers read LP threads and you guys have some good ones.

So what kind of LPs do RPG developers prefer, I wonder? Old and obscure RPGs, newer RPGs, non-RPGs? LPs of their own games maybe? Just curious.
 

Volourn

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"Technically that's not true. Aurora, which Bioware developed for NWN 1 is almost entirely the old IE engine, right down to the variable names and class names. They re-did the renderer and called it Aurora."

Ok. That's stretching it though. I wouldn't doubt that the DA engine also has some inkling of the IE as well.

"I know how much Square shelled out to Obsidian to make the game, and even if they spent that exact same amount on marketing, which I doubt, the game still made multi-millions for Square."

Yeah, but do you know how much they shilled out for their own employees? Plus, even if the game 'multi millions' ie. 2mil that doesn't mean it was a success as I doubt SS or any major publisher would cosndiered hiring a dev company for 2 years and only making 2mil and real profit a success.

Also, Obsidian is trying to be a AAA developer (100+) employees working on a popualr AAA franchise (DS1 and DS2 bothc leared 1mil easily if not reaching 2mil) so selling 820k copies isn't really easy to eb called a success espciially in the mdoern marketing where agame like DA2 which has sold 2mil+ is doomed a 'dissapointment'.

I also don't recall SS tooting the super happy success horn either which publishers are eager to do with succcessful games (espciially if what you claim is true that it was super duepr mega success for them). But, hey, at least it wasn't like Sega who basiclaly flat out said that AP was an absolute failure. I woudln't doubt that SS might have seen some sort of profit for DS3 but was it really enough? I dunno about that.

This sin't about being anti DS3. I'm anti Skyrim but no way would I label that a failrue (I'd have to be insane). Nor am I anti Obsidian sicne I enjoyed NWN2 and KOTOR2 and am currently enjoying FO:NV. :)


"Thanks for clearing this, maybe Volourn will shut his mouth now. Oh wait, we are talking about Volly here, who doesn't believe to anyone, not even a developer, or a publisher. If the Square head honcho himself would say that the game was a success, Volly would still find it a lie anyway."

Stop your whining fanboy. Get the SS chieft to post here and getb him to post their total pure profit for the game then let's comapred it to DS1 and DS2.

Mr. Davis himself said he doens't know any fatcual numbers other than how much Obsidian got paid for it. This means he doesn't know the advertsiing numbers, how much SS paid their own employees to help work on (Playtesting project manager and the like) the game, the cut themanufacture gets and the shipper as well. Not to mention the actual stores'. That 820k moolah can go by quickly dude.

Don't be ignorant and read up on that shit.

P.S. Considiering the Codex lives off of calling dev sna dpubluishers the devil and liars it's hialrious that I'm the one called on it. But, hey fanbis will be fanbois.

P.S. Nor am I even claling Mr. Davis a liar so you are cyring for nothing little boy.
 

IronicNeurotic

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ITT: Volourn beeing Volourn

Though, nowadays Voli really is just a desperate shell of his former self. I guess the :decline: affects even the most consistent of people.

:smug:
 

Xi

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Anthony Davis said:
I cannot speak for Obsidian obviously (someone should really change my avatar title) but I would guess that Obsidian would love the chance to work with Bethesda again.

I think many of us would kill for an Obsidian, Skyrim expansion. New Vegas was a far superior product to FO3, IMHO.
 

Volourn

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An Obsidian Skyrim epxansion would be a dumb diea alla round. Not because it would suck or it wouldn't sell but if Betehsda gonna hire Obsidian for anothe rgame it should be their own. Either a sequel to FO:NV or some other game. Or even a squel to the ES series but a measily expansion? Waste of tiem and effort.
 

deuxhero

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Anthony Davis said:
Destroid said:
Anthony Davis said:
IronicNeurotic said:
Anthony Davis said:
Nah, no drama.

I'm from Texas originally and I am at a point in my life where I am ready to start a family and be near my family again. The offer I received was a great opportunity.

Also, while Obsidianites don't post here, you can be assured we still read the forums.

So, are you allowed to say what studio will you be joining? Or are you leaving the rpg sector/industry.

I joined TimeGate Studios.

Will you be working on the Aliens game? That would be pretty funny considering the Aliens RPG that was cancelled at Obsidian.

Yeah, I'll be working on Aliens Colonial Marines. This gets me a step closer to completing my 2nd tier Nerd Trifecta Badge.

I probably won't ever complete the first tier thanks to the Star Trek license being so hard to get.

So are you going to be able to work with a Wii U devkit?
 

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