Obsidian and inXile acquired by Microsoft

[Vault Dweller]

How many people felt a strong urge to dive right in and explore the effects of colonization firsthand? 1 in 10?

I agree with Eder questline part but for this, if devs were to choose themes that at least 7 out 10 people would particularly want to explore, then their selection of themes would be too narrow and probably nothing new.

I disagree. Focusing on pirate societies (rather than using them as favor) or vastly different cultures would have been a much safer bet - and way more interesting - than focusing on colonization and oppression.

It isn't that important what themes they explore in the game...

Yet you've just agreed that exploring the themes of 'whose kid is this and what do I do with it?' in that Eider questline was a mistake. While themes can be handled differently, the default appeal varies greatly.

Not everything has to be "marketable". CDPR didn't market W3 with "We'll tackle domestic issues in our game" but Bloody Baron ended up the most famous questline of the game.

Because the main selling point of W3 was the open world: explore and slay monsters; coincidentally it fits the setting like a glove because that's exactly what a witcher does. People bought to to explore the world not political themes, so well done and well handled themes were a bonus.

 

[fantadomat]

Also he made me buy ELEX the fucker

The joke's on you. I never fell for this meme.

Then the joke is on you . Your brain will rot away if you only play stupid games like Deadfire.

 

[AwesomeButton]

Also he made me buy ELEX the fucker

The joke's on you. I never fell for this meme.

Then the joke is on you . Your brain will rot away if you only play stupid games like Deadfire.

Well, you are someone who is unlikely to ever be exposed to such a danger.

 

[IHaveHugeNick]

I disagree. Focusing on pirate societies (rather than using them as favor) or vastly different cultures would have been a much safer bet - and way more interesting - than focusing on colonization and oppression.

Who was focusing on colonization and oppression? Political themes were used as a selling point by Polygons, Kotakus and the rest of the cockoo leftist gaming websites, not by Obsidian itself.

 

[fantadomat]

Also he made me buy ELEX the fucker

The joke's on you. I never fell for this meme.

Then the joke is on you . Your brain will rot away if you only play stupid games like Deadfire.

Well, you are someone who is unlikely to ever be exposed to such a danger.

That is true,i play two good game for every shitty deadfire like game. Also i do like reading books and thus improve the quantity and quality of my brain wrinkle. You enjoy your.....combat.

 

[Reinhardt]

Also i do like reading books

Nice euphemism for "story mode".

 

[Quillon]

I disagree. Focusing on pirate societies (rather than using them as favor) or vastly different cultures would have been a much safer bet - and way more interesting - than focusing on colonization and oppression.

If it were up to me, I'd rather make them make AC:Black Flag type RPG that takes place on our fucking Earth(nuff world-building for ya, here's one already built) and forbid them from making anything fantastical for the next 50 years, yet there are those who hate pirate themes also.

Tho they actively prevented themselves from making any concept that's "proven" in Pillars series, they probably vowed to tackle "serious" issues from the get go. They weren't gonna explore pirate societies after they've just dealt with the dead baby holocaust. Another reason that the sequel came too soon.

 

[fantadomat]

Also i do like reading books

Nice euphemism for "story mode".

You dear sir,made me laugh

 

[Jedi Master Radek]

Yet you've just agreed that exploring the themes of 'whose kid is this and what do I do with it?' in that Eider questline was a mistake. While themes can be handled differently, the default appeal varies greatly.

I haven't played Deadfire, but I feel the questline described could be interesting if done by a competent writer. Isn't execution more important than the concept?

 

[Fenix]

The only question the left (for me at least) is this - Vault Dweller how do you think how much time you have if that apocalypce is true?

Amazon killed off physical book stores. Moreover, some retards on the web already advocate for closing of public libraries in favor of Amazon/Kindle. Netflix killed off rental stores and is slowly killing movie theaters. This sounds good to some people, but they only think about their immediate convenience, rather than long-term consequences. In the long run this will lead to hyper-centralization of movie production. No one is going to pay for Netflix, Hulu, YouTube Red and Amazon Prime subscription at the same time. And as the time goes by there is less and less chance that someone completely new will be able to compete with the established subscription services. And they will be able to simply buy their competition in case it gets reasonably good.

Let's look at the inevitable consequences of games-as-a-service model:

1. DRM.
2. No game ownership of any kid.
3. Money to the developers is distributed by some formula that's controlled by the platform, not through percentage of actual sales.
4. Products do not directly compete with one another.
5. Inevitable hyper-centralization in the long run.

It's especially hard to predict how #4 will affect game quality, quantity and diversity. For example, right now indie games can compete with AAA titles by lowering their prices. This will not work under the subscription model. Also, newer games have to compete with much cheaper older games. This will stop being a real factor either. Most importantly: no immediate feedback. Right now, if your game sucks, no one buys it. With subscription model, the platform would be able to redistribute money any way their contracts allows them. Subscription a-la Netflix is the ultimate form of bundling, where every single thing on the catalog is bundled with every other thing. This gives the platform disproportionate leverage over consumers and content producers. Your only option as a consumer is to unsubscribe, and then you loose access to everything in the catalog.

This stuff is not like cable TV or old-school magazine subscriptions.

 

[Ulfhednar]

Moderately relevant social media trivia:

2 of Larian's top 5 most viewed videos on their YouTube channel are a 4 hour long display of their game master mode with Matt Mercer (777k views) and the update about Co-op gameplay (331k views), suggesting those features were popular.

Obsidian's 2nd most viewed video is the Deadfire Campaign Launch trailer that had 707k views, suggesting that they got the word out to a much larger audience than those who ultimately bought the game.

 

[Lutte]

I know people who bought D:OS2 solely for playing COOP. They exist. The COOP feature is literally the only reason why they bought it. And they never played it or the original D:OS in a solo fashion. Only coop runs.
That sort of people doesn't need to be a majority of the buyers to still significantly boost the sales in a niche market like this, with a niche feature that has a very rabid fanbase ready to eat and buy anything that has "coop" slapped on the box. There's so few even remotely half-decent games with coop features these days that this particular niche of customers will rabidly buy anything you slap it on as long as it's not excessively broken. It's a good strategy to sell indie mediocrity.

 

[Quillon]

Obsidian's 2nd most viewed video is the Deadfire Campaign Launch trailer that had 707k views, suggesting that they got the word out to a much larger audience than those who ultimately bought the game.

Obs make great melancholy videos about themselves with PoE soundtrack on the background, its prolly the reason why so many watched it

 

[rusty_shackleford]

maybe the game just sold badly because it's not a very interesting setting
I remember naming every island I found "more rocks" because the game felt so empty.

 

[AwesomeButton]

Yet you've just agreed that exploring the themes of 'whose kid is this and what do I do with it?' in that Eider questline was a mistake. While themes can be handled differently, the default appeal varies greatly.

I haven't played Deadfire, but I feel the questline described could be interesting if done by a competent writer. Isn't execution more important than the concept?

A big if. Unfortunately, all the companion quests are tacked-on and disappointing. And virtually all their stories follow the same template. Read Josh's incoherent explanation about how he hates "subverting the tropes" writing, and his aim is not to be "subverting tropes", but to portray real-life situations where expectations and set goals don't match with where you actually end up (a nice metaphor for Deadfire itself).

Reference: https://jesawyer.tumblr.com/post/176914691701/hi-i-was-wondering-if-dealing-with-disappointment Of course I think it's fundamentally wrong to try to apply storytelling principles from The Name of the Rose to a videogame's story, but that's just me.

Also, I think this approach sums up why all companion quests were so uninspired: https://www.reddit.com/r/projecteternity/comments/8j449r/josh_sawyer_about_companion_quests/ I hate this kind of approaching a task - "we have a bunch of checkboxes to check off".

 

[Reinhardt]

maybe the game just sold badly because it's not a very interesting setting
I remember naming every island I found "more rocks" because the game felt so empty.

Named them "First", "Second" and so on.

 

[AwesomeButton]

maybe the game just sold badly because it's not a very interesting setting
I remember naming every island I found "more rocks" because the game felt so empty.

Yeah, the exploration element delivered much less than it seemed to at first glance. But this is something you find out only after you've bought and played the game for a while.

 

[Vault Dweller]

Yet you've just agreed that exploring the themes of 'whose kid is this and what do I do with it?' in that Eider questline was a mistake. While themes can be handled differently, the default appeal varies greatly.

I haven't played Deadfire, but I feel the questline described could be interesting if done by a competent writer. Isn't execution more important than the concept?

Why should the players give a fuck about it regardless of how it's done? How does it make Eidar an interesting party member? These questions should be asked and answered by the designers before they start working on it.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

I'd play a PoE game that was just you and Eder

 

[Quillon]

I'd play a PoE game that was just you and Eder

Me and Eder are best, yeah. Thanks.

 

[IHaveHugeNick]

Yet you've just agreed that exploring the themes of 'whose kid is this and what do I do with it?' in that Eider questline was a mistake. While themes can be handled differently, the default appeal varies greatly.

I haven't played Deadfire, but I feel the questline described could be interesting if done by a competent writer. Isn't execution more important than the concept?

Why should the players give a fuck about it regardless of how it's done? How does it make Eidar an interesting party member? These questions should be asked and answered by the designers before they start working on it.

Tthat storyline is probably the reason why Eder is the only companion who doesn't offer gay buttsex within 3 minutes after joining the party

 

[AwesomeButton]

They claimed that the instant buttsex offers were a bug with the relationship system, but given the writing most companions have, the MO matches the bug suspiciously well.

 

[MF]

Releasing quality RPGs every year is impossible. They take 3-4 years to make, if not longer.

I can attest to that. I naively planned to release Titan Outpost last year. I guess I could have, if I had cut corners everywhere and never reiterated anything. Quality is an ambiguous concept, but personally I like complex, involved quests with branches and non-binary outcomes. Quest complexity doesn't scale linearly and every angle you add increases your workload by almost factor of two.

PS You made Dungeon Rats, which I really enjoyed, in less than a year. You let the mechanics do all the heavy lifting for you on that one, but I still consider it a quality game. When I played it, I thought it would have a broader appeal than AoD for some reason. I was surprised to see it sell a lot less. I know you sort of regret it and consider it a mistake, but I'm not sure the proof was in the pudding on that one. Obviously you thought it was a quality game, or you wouldn't have released it. Did the sales change your perspective on that? Or are dungeon crawlers exempt from being called quality RPGs? I'm not inviting you to go down a semantic rabbit hole here, I'm just curious if you're still proud of it.

 

[fantadomat]

How does it make Eidar an interesting party member?

He is blond Aryan and smokes pipe. This is far more that i could say for the rest of the rabble. The two interesting characters in the whole game were the vampire girl and the mysterious red head fighter that doesn't know the language. All the rest are dumpsterfire fuel.

 

[Quillon]

They claimed that the instant buttsex offers were a bug with the relationship system, but given the writing most companions have, the MO matches the bug suspiciously well.

Atsura's dialogue with gay advances somehow not properly nodded, another convenient bug.