Eternity Avowed - Obsidian's first person action-RPG in the Pillars of Eternity setting - coming February 18th

[jf8350143]

It appears that Inxile gets a much bigger budget for their game than Obsidian and it kind intrigues me. I assumed it would be the other way around.

Wonder What Brian Fargo has to do for Spencer to get so much money.

 

[Quillon]

Ask yourself what sounds more exciting: a Bioshock Infinite clone or a medieval version of The Outer Worlds. Then it should be obvious which game deserves more hype.

They ended up with "medieval version of TOW" but their pitch was Skyrim clone, which shoulda been more appealing premise for MS; Skyrim was a much more successful game than Bloomshock. Also Obs had made high budget games before so it shoulda been more of a shot in the dark trusting InXile more but it seems to the case somehow.

 

[Maxie]

John Soyer ripped off Black Gayser and Skyrim

 

[Infinitron]

It appears that Inxile gets a much bigger budget for their game than Obsidian and it kind intrigues me. I assumed it would be the other way around.

Wonder What Brian Fargo has to do for Spencer to get so much money.

We can't really tell by a trailer that Clockwork Revolution has a higher budget than Avowed.

What we can say is that it probably has a higher budget trailer.

Why? Maybe because inXile is a lesser known studio (and more-or-less completely unknown to AAA normies), so they need to try harder to impress. Remember Brian Fargo's Kickstarter pitch videos with their fancy live-action skits?

 

[Quillon]

It appears that Inxile gets a much bigger budget for their game than Obsidian and it kind intrigues me. I assumed it would be the other way around.

Wonder What Brian Fargo has to do for Spencer to get so much money.

We can't really tell by a trailer that Clockwork Revolution has a higher budget than Avowed.

What we can say is that it probably has a higher budget trailer.

Why? Maybe because inXile is a lesser known studio (and more-or-less completely unknown to AAA normies), so they need to try harder to impress. Remember Brian Fargo's Kickstarter pitches with their fancy live-action skits?

Haven't Inxile went on a hiring spree snatching people left and right, even from Obs, where as Obs mostly stood still in terms of personel? Isn't that any indication?

 

[Riddler]

It appears that Inxile gets a much bigger budget for their game than Obsidian and it kind intrigues me. I assumed it would be the other way around.

Wonder What Brian Fargo has to do for Spencer to get so much money.

We can't really tell by a trailer that Clockwork Revolution has a higher budget than Avowed.

What we can say is that it probably has a higher budget trailer.

Why? Maybe because inXile is a lesser known studio (and more-or-less completely unknown to AAA normies), so they need to try harder to impress. Remember Brian Fargo's Kickstarter pitch videos with their fancy live-action skits?

Or that they haven't pissed away their budget.

 

[Tyranicon]

It appears that Inxile gets a much bigger budget for their game than Obsidian and it kind intrigues me. I assumed it would be the other way around.

Wonder What Brian Fargo has to do for Spencer to get so much money.

We can't really tell by a trailer that Clockwork Revolution has a higher budget than Avowed.

What we can say is that it probably has a higher budget trailer.

Why? Maybe because inXile is a lesser known studio (and more-or-less completely unknown to AAA normies), so they need to try harder to impress. Remember Brian Fargo's Kickstarter pitch videos with their fancy live-action skits?

We can also tell that inXile has slightly better art design.

Not by much, but just enough so that people aren't immediately making xbox 360 comparisons. They only make those once they really thought about it

 

[Roguey]

It appears that Inxile gets a much bigger budget for their game than Obsidian and it kind intrigues me. I assumed it would be the other way around.

Wonder What Brian Fargo has to do for Spencer to get so much money.

We can't really tell by a trailer that Clockwork Revolution has a higher budget than Avowed.

What we can say is that it probably has a higher budget trailer.

Why? Maybe because inXile is a lesser known studio (and more-or-less completely unknown to AAA normies), so they need to try harder to impress. Remember Brian Fargo's Kickstarter pitches with their fancy live-action skits?

Haven't Inxile went on a hiring spree snatching people left and right, even from Obs, where as Obs mostly stood still in terms of personel? Isn't that any indication?

Going by employee counts: inXile has about 100 and for all we know they're only working on this one game. Obsidian has about 300 working on two big games. Microsoft is certainly spending more money on Obsidian overall.

 

[Maxie]

It appears that Inxile gets a much bigger budget for their game than Obsidian and it kind intrigues me. I assumed it would be the other way around.

Wonder What Brian Fargo has to do for Spencer to get so much money.

We can't really tell by a trailer that Clockwork Revolution has a higher budget than Avowed.

What we can say is that it probably has a higher budget trailer.

Why? Maybe because inXile is a lesser known studio (and more-or-less completely unknown to AAA normies), so they need to try harder to impress. Remember Brian Fargo's Kickstarter pitches with their fancy live-action skits?

Haven't Inxile went on a hiring spree snatching people left and right, even from Obs, where as Obs mostly stood still in terms of personel? Isn't that any indication?

Going by employee counts: inXile has about 100 and for all we know they're only working on this one game. Obsidian has about 300 working on two big games. Microsoft is certainly spending more money on Obsidian overall.

Those dumb motherfuckers. I told them, I told them over and over again.

 

[Immortal]

Lmfao..

 

[Nikanuur]

Different times, different Obsidian. Don't count on more than Fantasy Outer Words.

Outer Worlds were horrible for what they promised, but considering them without the bias stemming out of hurt hope and almost-false advertisement, they are an okay FPS/RPG hybrid filler with some bright moments.
I would love to have something along the lines of an uplifted and modernized Messiah of M&M only in Eora, but I'll take fantasy Outer Worlds clone as well.

 

[La vie sexuelle]

Different times, different Obsidian. Don't count on more than Fantasy Outer Words.

Outer Worlds were horrible for what they promised, but considering them without the bias stemming out of hurt hope and almost-false advertisement, they are an okay FPS/RPG hybrid filler with some bright moments.
I would love to have something along the lines of an uplifted and modernized Messiah of M&M only in Eora, but I'll take fantasy Outer Worlds clone as well.

Maybe Fergus thinks this way - people like Skyrim, but Skyrim is long. Most of customers collect games, not spend a lot time with. Solution? Short Skyrim, just like Outer Words were short New Vegas.

 

[Delterius]

We can't really tell by a trailer that Clockwork Revolution has a higher budget than Avowed.

What we can say is that it probably has a higher budget trailer.

I slightly disagree here.

Yes, we don't know the actual scale of either game. We know Avowed is closer to TOW than Skyrim. And we can assume Clockwork won't be massive, like the thing it is trying to copy. But what we know for sure isn't which trailer has the better budget, but which game went through dev hell and which didn't.

I expected Avowed to be in beta at least. What the hell.

 

[Infinitron]

But what we know for sure isn't which trailer has the better budget, but which game went through dev hell and which didn't.

I expected Avowed to be in beta at least. What the hell.

It seems to me that Clockwork Revolution's trailer is operating in the "cinematic reveal" mode. While Avowed's trailer is operating in the "hey look, finally actual gameplay!" mode. Two different types of trailers with different amounts of investment into polish that go into them.

But sure, I agree with that.

 

[Delterius]

But what we know for sure isn't which trailer has the better budget, but which game went through dev hell and which didn't.

I expected Avowed to be in beta at least. What the hell.

It seems to me that Clockwork Revolution's trailer is operating in the "cinematic reveal" mode. While Avowed's trailer is operating in the "hey look, finally actual gameplay!" mode. Two different types of trailers with different amounts of investment into polish that go into them.

But sure, I agree with that.

That's true, and for what it's worth Inxile at least made clear what game they are actually making. Seems like half of the reveals were cutscenes with no connection to gameplay or even genre.

I still don't know if the new Fable is Punch Out with the IT guy or not.

 

[Immortal]

Maybe Fergus thinks this way - people like Skyrim, but Skyrim is long. Most of customers collect games, not spend a lot time with. Solution? Short Skyrim, just like Outer Words were short New Vegas.

Holy fucking Cope.

Here's what happened.

> Fergus and Chris thought they could make Skyrim
> Skyrim turns out to be very expensive to make, it takes a long time and a lot of resources
> Obsidian needs to release this game, they've been futzing about for years on it (Working From Home), Skyrim will not be achievable by this team
> Okay, slice it up into a Outer Worlds game and fucking ship it

Why?

Whenever game developers get in a room and head larp about a game.. they imagine the world - the greatest thing ever, they pretend they care about scope but it's all a facade.. 4 years later, all those imaginations and dreams become a reality and it's usually a broken pile of shit.

Fergus is taking the nearest exit off the highway and shipping what they can, which will be a 30 hour snore fest with 2 years of abandoned half-features left on the cutting room floor.

If they can sell you Outer Worlds for 69.99.. Why invest the time to make Skyrim for 69.99 ??
Hell - With game pass, it seems any turd is "good enough" so just fucking ship it.

 

[La vie sexuelle]

Maybe Fergus thinks this way - people like Skyrim, but Skyrim is long. Most of customers collect games, not spend a lot time with. Solution? Short Skyrim, just like Outer Words were short New Vegas.

If they can sell you Outer Worlds for 69.99.. Why invest the time to make Skyrim for 69.99 ??

Isn't I said something similar?

 

[Immortal]

Maybe Fergus thinks this way - people like Skyrim, but Skyrim is long. Most of customers collect games, not spend a lot time with. Solution? Short Skyrim, just like Outer Words were short New Vegas.

If they can sell you Outer Worlds for 69.99.. Why invest the time to make Skyrim for 69.99 ??

Isn't I said something similar?

It has nothing to do with Fergus thinking "Oh.. People only play skyrim for a few hours, maybe they won't notice"

It's more - "We failed to make Skyrim - fuck it ship anyways"

But I guess in a way yes.

 

[Mazisky]

So they didn't learn from Pillars 2 and decided again to scrap the classic environments and go exotic with the weird world and biome.

Meanwhile Baldur's Gate 3 sells millions copies with the classic forests and meadows and so will do the Witcher 4 and Elder Scrolls 6.

But hey, let's find an original setting nobody cares, the one with alien vegetation and strange colors!

 

[Ryzer]

Who are the gameplay designers on this game? Roguey enlighten me.
So that maybe it will single-handily save this game from the bottomless pit.

 

[La vie sexuelle]

Maybe Fergus thinks this way - people like Skyrim, but Skyrim is long. Most of customers collect games, not spend a lot time with. Solution? Short Skyrim, just like Outer Words were short New Vegas.

If they can sell you Outer Worlds for 69.99.. Why invest the time to make Skyrim for 69.99 ??

Isn't I said something similar?

It has nothing to do with Fergus thinking "Oh.. People only play skyrim for a few hours, maybe they won't notice"

It's more - "We failed to make Skyrim - fuck it ship anyways"

But I guess in a way yes.

No matter how big were their ambitions, everything ended in budget-Skyrim for less sophisticated players.

 

[Infinitron]

So they didn't learn from Pillars 2 and decided again to scrap the classic environments and go exotic with the weird world and biome.

Meanwhile Baldur's Gate 3 sells millions copies with the classic forests and meadows and so will do the Witcher 4 and Elder Scrolls 6.

But hey, let's find an original setting nobody cares, the one with alien vegetation and strange colors!

It's kind of obvious from its description in the Pillars of Eternity lorebook that The Living Lands was conceived intentionally for use in some future title. At the time I thought Josh Sawyer was thinking of putting some Icewind Dale tactical spinoff there where we would traverse through a bunch of wacky environments and fight all sorts of weird monsters.

But it'll probably have some classic forests and meadows biomes too.

 

[Roguey]

That's true, and for what it's worth Inxile at least made clear what game they are actually making. Seems like half of the reveals were cutscenes with no connection to gameplay or even genre.

Fargo did have to elaborate on twitter that it was a real RPG with full character creation and NPCs to talk to and a lot of reactivity since the trailer made it look like a Bioshock game.

Who are the gameplay designers on this game? Roguey enlighten me.
So that maybe it will single-handily save this game from the bottomless pit.

I don't know. Not Sawyer. https://rpgcodex.net/forums/threads...rnity-setting-coming-2024.134122/post-6867500 has a list of devs who were working on it in 2020.

Maxwell Matzenbacher - Senior Combat Designer

Martin Smith - Senior System Designer
Kevin M. Lee - Senior System Designer (I'm not completely sure on this one)
Kyle Koenig - System Designer

Of these guys, apparently Matzenbacher is still there, Smith and Lee are gone, Koenig is on Outer Worlds 2.

Jorge Salgado - Lead Area Designer (?)
Kayd Hendricks - Senior Area Designer
Seth May - Area Designer

Of these guys, Salagdo quit, Hendricks is apparently still there, and May quit in August 2021, worked for Blizzard for 8 months, and then came back to Avowed in March 2022 (?!) Must have really hated Blizzard culture if he came crawling back to the dumpsterfire.


Edit: Carter Thomas claims he's been working on Avowed since January 2017, over six years. https://www.linkedin.com/in/carter-thomas-84726757 So uh, they were planning this before Microsoft bought them?

 

[Delterius]

Fargo did have to elaborate on twitter that it was a real RPG with full character creation and NPCs to talk to and a lot of reactivity since the trailer made it look like a Bioshock game.

oh good to know. i even thought the game had a set protagonist.

 

[Infinitron]

Edit: Carter Thomas claims he's been working on Avowed since January 2017, over six years. https://www.linkedin.com/in/carter-thomas-84726757 So uh, they were planning this before Microsoft bought them?

More likely there's another project he's not listing there.

The Outer Worlds: https://www.mobygames.com/person/608394/carter-thomas/