Interview Avowed Deep Dive with Carrie Patel

[Baron Tahn]

Wot the fuck are you ranting about? I work in film/tv/advertising (for gaming). I see it happen all the fucking time. I know how much advertising pays, how little 'real media' pays and how few fucks big corpos give for creatives unless they can spin a buck and Ive seen them shred teams, or use small teams hoping to make some money for their own ends. In every single case I have seen where big dog eats smaller dog, their teams have been shredded. The talent is either fired or takes the bribe to go work in the 'creative' departments of the big corp, where they get paid big bucks to work out new exciting ways to create 'minimum viable product' for the largest amount of cash, which has resulted in microtransactions, streaming services, twitch style advertising, rampant online advertising in general...

The only way to avoid this is not to be bought. Unfortunately, that also means you don't make enough money to compete and then the wolves come looking for food. Then you get eaten. Only company I can think of currently avoiding it is Larian (last I checked?) and likely only because they a)only just somewhat recently became a target and b)they still have the talent that started that company leading said company.

Advertising dictates to you what the market is via manipulation, 'the market'does what it's told like a bitch.

 

[PunchYouInTheFace]

It's like somebody working as Delivery Driver for Canning Factory trying to claim they know everything about Fish Canning industry, because they work as Delivery Driver. For a canning factory.

 

[Roguey]

First gameplay:

Hosts awkwardly try to talk around how silly it looks when you're punching a mushroom goblin repetitively with a sword.

Ah, peak RPG right here.

Obsidian was deliberately demonstrating that the combat looks like crap if your equipment is underpar and stressing the importance of keeping up with the treadmill.

Probably wasn't the best idea to start things off like that, first impressions being everything.

 

[Shaki]

First gameplay:

Hosts awkwardly try to talk around how silly it looks when you're punching a mushroom goblin repetitively with a sword.

Ah, peak RPG right here.

Obsidian was deliberately demonstrating that the combat looks like crap if your equipment is underpar and stressing the importance of keeping up with the treadmill.

Probably wasn't the best idea to start things off like that, first impressions being everything.

"Obsidian akshually made combat garbage on purpose, a masterstroke by Sawyer"

Roguey is reaching absolutely unholy levels of cope.

 

[Roguey]

"Obsidian akshually made combat garbage on purpose, a masterstroke by Sawyer"

Roguey is reaching absolutely unholy levels of cope.

Did you watch the video? When they get to the jank combat, Carrie explains their intentions. Then the PC gets a better sword and in the next combat footage it's actually slashing through enemies, causing splatter, and killing them in a few hits instead of ineffectively bouncing off for a dozen or more.

 

[Cohesion]

Obsidian is a corpse walking. I will say it's funny how Microsoft paid top dollar for all these studios at the precise moment they became completely trash and had no value; Obsidian, Activision-Blizzard, Bethesda.

They have like infinite money. And they will buy more and more. They even tried to buy Steam.

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

I will say it's funny how Microsoft paid top dollar for all these studios at the precise moment they became completely trash and had no value; Obsidian, Activision-Blizzard, Bethesda.

Activision-Blizzard was complete trash long before that. I have a feeling that MicroSoft bought them just for Call of Duty, Diablo IV, Diablo Immortal and World of Warcraft. All of them make a decent amount of money, but it's hard to argue that everything Blizzard did with those have had some major screw ups. Blizzard drug their heels on the WoW Classic thing, but that was probably one of the larger life lines to that property.

Obsidian is probably the one they'll kill first if they kill any of them, since Bethesda has Fallout 76 to earn them money on the microtransactions and Blizzard has Diablo IV, Diablo Immortal, and World of Warcraft.

 

[Gargaune]

Uh, no dude. I'm well aware of the difference between the two, and NWN suffered badly in both departments. Art direction was definitely hamstrung by graphical limitations (and, I would argue, perhaps more severely by the tilebased nature of the toolset), but there's very little extant in the finished product that suggests it would have been a great-looking game without those constraints (there's like one tileset I can think of off-hand that shows some promise).

But there's nothing about NWN's art direction beyond polycount to make it a visually off-putting game. I get that coming from those beautiful prerendered background in IE, NWN's already slightly outdated 3D is a bit of a shocker, but there's nothing particularly untowards about its stylistic choices. Its visual tone is similar to Arx Fatalis or Gothic or whatever, just more barebones on the technicals.

In counterpoint, Avoid is visually repelling regardless of tech level, it doesn't matter whether you throw Unreal 5 at it or make it a Morrowind mod, the artistic intent behind it is messed up per Obsidian's explicit goals. Just compare it to Monomyth, a game with the same perspective and decidedly lower production values, and yet you can immediately see the stark difference in image composition.

 

[Sweeper]

It's like somebody working as Delivery Driver for Canning Factory trying to claim they know everything about Fish Canning industry, because they work as Delivery Driver. For a canning factory.

Dude you seem to be in on all this shit... HOLY FUCK, ARE YOU BOBBY KOTICK?

 

[MrBuzzKill]

My biggest gripe is how acidically colorful everything looks. I get it, The Outer Worlds sold very well, but you don't have to literally repeat the color thing.

 

[Maculo]

This trailer is only marginally better than the first. Maybe I am old/retarded (or both), but I had trouble discerning certain details against the terrain.

I still think it is a huge mistake not center the game on being a Cipher. Plenty of fantasy games have the warrior, wizard, ranger archetypes, but I can think of few that have a psychic class. Further, where are the guns? I thought the setting was to be a weird mishmash of guns, magic, and mysticism.

 

[thesecret1]

The short exchange with the furfag bitch said everything, I believe. Nu-Bioware level of writing, combined with repulsive character design and the most annoying voice acting they could've picked. Decline if there ever was one.

 

[Zeriel]

I will say it's funny how Microsoft paid top dollar for all these studios at the precise moment they became completely trash and had no value; Obsidian, Activision-Blizzard, Bethesda.

Activision-Blizzard was complete trash long before that. I have a feeling that MicroSoft bought them just for Call of Duty, Diablo IV, Diablo Immortal and World of Warcraft. All of them make a decent amount of money, but it's hard to argue that everything Blizzard did with those have had some major screw ups. Blizzard drug their heels on the WoW Classic thing, but that was probably one of the larger life lines to that property.

Obsidian is probably the one they'll kill first if they kill any of them, since Bethesda has Fallout 76 to earn them money on the microtransactions and Blizzard has Diablo IV, Diablo Immortal, and World of Warcraft.

Ironically, I think the only bright spots there are Call of Duty and Diablo Immortal. Diablo Immortal is seen as trash by the core fans, but it made like 2 million dollars a day. Financially it's a success and is "the future", so to speak. The other legacy Blizzard properties are just kind of fucked though. Diablo 4 is meandering around still struggling to not drown, the fact they already announced they are working on D5 shows the suits have no confidence in it, WoW is petering off into a trickle of relevancy more and more with every year, and Overwatch famously nuked its own fanbase with Overwatch 2.

 

[ds]

But there's nothing about NWN's art direction beyond polycount to make it a visually off-putting game. I get that coming from those beautiful prerendered background in IE, NWN's already slightly outdated 3D is a bit of a shocker, but there's nothing particularly untowards about its stylistic choices. Its visual tone is similar to Arx Fatalis or Gothic or whatever, just more barebones on the technicals.

NwN doesn't even come close to this atmosphere or variety:

Pre-expansion NwN is basically generic cities, villages and caverns forests. And at least part of the square and repetitive look attributed to it being tilesets could have been avoided with better art direction as well as shown by numerous community created tilesets that look a lot more organic than what Bioware created. Yeah there were some nice parts here and there like god rays but mostly it's pretty uninspired. And that's before you even get to characters and their faces.

 

[Gargaune]

Pre-expansion NwN is basically generic cities, villages and caverns forests.

And I'll take that over the visual cacophony Avoid's peddling any day of the week, please and thank you.

 

[luj1]

I don’t disagree with you, but that sentiment coming from an NWN apologist is… something.

NwN was blocky and desolate (trademark of the era) but it had a ton of charm for an early '00s 3D game

the music, the characters, the 2D art (like portraits/UI elements) is still remembered to this day

Meanwhile this generic vomit will be forgotten in 6 months, like Outer Worlds or ME: Andromeda

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

the fact they already announced they are working on D5 shows the suits have no confidence in it

It might be that, but it also might be how damned long it takes them to make a Diablo sequel. Diablo 3 was 12 years after Diablo 2, and Diablo 4 was 11 years after Diablo 3. I watched a crazy video about Diablo 3's development and it seemed like most of that time could be summed up with, "Look at Diablo 2, decide you don't want to do feature X like Diablo 2, come up with new feature that replaces feature X, test it, come up with another feature since that wasn't as good, test it, go back to the way Diablo 2 did it." I think the big problem with this is that while they're trying to revolutionize things, everyone else is iterating Diablo II and having fairly successful results.

 

[luj1]

Obsidian was deliberately demonstrating that the combat looks like crap if your equipment is underpar and stressing the importance of keeping up

Ahahahah

I have True Sight

 

[luj1]

"Obsidian akshually made combat garbage on purpose, a masterstroke by Sawyer"

Roguey is reaching absolutely unholy levels of cope.

He/she/it is more clever than Infinitron, but still an industry whore, make no mistake

What's sad tho is when these people convince themselves that they befriended someone, which is quite pathetic/spineless in itself

 

[Sweeper]

Fuck me, Avowed actually has worse gameplay than Deadwolf.
Bravo Obsidian, bravo.

 

[Roguey]

He/she/it is more clever than @Infinitron, but still an industry whore, make no mistake

What's sad tho is when these people convince themselves that they befriended someone, which is quite pathetic/spineless in itself

I'm pretty confident the people at Three-Clown Entertainment find me unsettling.

X's Folly did make it into Tyranny and Deadfire which is pretty swell though.

 

[luj1]

I'm pretty confident the people at Three-Clown Entertainment find me unsettling.

 

[Jedi Master Radek]

No, it is actually quite true to the PoE titles, and those looked pretty decent, all faults aside. Give it to a couple of competent teenagers (Bodycam developers) and the game could be turned from an eurojank X360 looking title to a passable looking RPG suitable for this generation. It would still be vastly inferior even to 4 year old titles like CP2077, but at least it wouldn't be so garish. Even The Outer Worlds could have been easily improved, despite a genuinely repulsive character designs.

The isometric PoE games did look pretty decent, in fact Deadfire was genuinely beautiful, but Avoid has pushed its art direction past that level. It's not a coincidence that previous marketing materials have made a point of how "it's colourful, it's vibrant, it's strange", which fits in with the contemporary trend in art direction focusing on the whimsical/trivial and it will touch everything from visuals to audio and writing to varying extents. Nevermind the rest, just look at the colour palettes, the contrasts and image compositions, the little pink faerie lights in the distance and the neon white flora, the cutesy mushroom enemies etc. etc. - it's all there and it's not Deadfire, it's Marvel.

It's not just a gimmick, it's a shared artistic sensibility among entertainment professionals these days and it's one I'm just sick of by now. I learned everything I needed to know about The Otter Worlds when I saw the visual direction of its actual levels and I decided to detest it on the spot. In retrospect, it was the right call and I'm sure it'll be the same for Avoid.

Actually Marvel movies have a very dull, washed up colors pallette. This is what makes them ugly, not being too colorful. Deadfire was more colorful than those....movies.

 

[Crescent Hawk]

This looks really gross. Jesus. My mind froze trying to understand what was that fucking Thundercat until the meaningless bootleg halflings " Orlans" popped into my memory. I swear I hope the industry keeps dynamiting itself and all get fired. There are already others who are taking the mantle.