Obsidian and inXile acquired by Microsoft

[pomenitul]

I thought there was a higher rate of psychopathy among CEOs.

 

[Mustawd]

I thought there was a higher rate of psychopathy among CEOs.

Maybe CEOs of Rpg dev studios.

 

[Quillon]

Here's a detailed list of what she did in Deadfire and a less detailed list of Tyranny: http://www.fictivate.com/game-design.html

Huh, she actually wrote the most enjoyable parts of Deadfire :D Tho did she design it/that principi stuff also?

 

[Big Wrangle]

Once you're "the boss" you pretty much end up dropping the façade. You're at the top and people will have to pander to you even if they hate your guts. Which ends up setting for a hostile corporate culture. On the other hand, a bunch of 'em eventually end up with rather counterproductive results, which can result to a decline later until replaced.

 

[Thane Solus]

tbh good for Obsidian and Inxile (if). MS wont know what to do with them and fail miserably, while the previous owners will retire.

 

[Quillon]

tbh good for Obsidian and Inxile (if). MS wont know what to do with them and fail miserably, while the previous owners will retire.

Who knows what happens in the future but right now MS seems to be all for throwing money around hope they stick so they'll need to make the most of it. If they do stuff like when they made AP, Aliens, Numanuma etc development messes and/or make stuff for their personal sjw agendas it'll be their own fault. It'll be hard to blame MS from now on.

 

[2house2fly]

1. Incredibly enough, Deadfire's plot is worse than PoE1.
   It reminds me of a very bland version of Planescape's Dead Gods adventure, but not in a good way.
   I absolutely felt no motivation nor emotional connection to the story or characters.
   The theatre scenes when you talk with other gods take the reward for the dullest godhood scenes ever.
   
   
2. Uninspired world - finally they're doing their own IP and can take it in any fantastical direction they want to.
   But no... they choose to mix together Hawaii, Japan and Caribbean pirates and hope it will be an unforgettable experience for players.
   
   
3. Sidequests design - Darth Roxor nicely described how sidequests are the same or perhaps worse than in PoE1 here https://rpgcodex.net/content.php?id=10984

So you think that Sawyer made the creative team design a deliberately bad story, setting and sidequests... out of arrogance?

 

[Big Wrangle]

Well in that case just make Dink Smallwood 2

Funny game though

 

[Tigranes]

1. Incredibly enough, Deadfire's plot is worse than PoE1.
   It reminds me of a very bland version of Planescape's Dead Gods adventure, but not in a good way.
   I absolutely felt no motivation nor emotional connection to the story or characters.
   The theatre scenes when you talk with other gods take the reward for the dullest godhood scenes ever.
   
   
2. Uninspired world - finally they're doing their own IP and can take it in any fantastical direction they want to.
   But no... they choose to mix together Hawaii, Japan and Caribbean pirates and hope it will be an unforgettable experience for players.
   
   
3. Sidequests design - Darth Roxor nicely described how sidequests are the same or perhaps worse than in PoE1 here https://rpgcodex.net/content.php?id=10984

So you think that Sawyer made the creative team design a deliberately bad story, setting and sidequests... out of arrogance?

The funny thing is all of those criticisms make sense without ever having to mention Sawyer.

"Deadfire has a horrible story"
"Yes, I agree, and I think it comes down to how their themes don't mesh together and-"
"SAWYA SAWYA SAWYA SAYWA"
"What?"
"BURN HIM BURN HIM BURN HIM I CANNOT STOP THINKING ABOUT SAWYA DID YOU KNOW THAT ON TWITTER ON DECEMBER 16TH HE SAID 'GROGNARDS' LIKE OH MY GOD ALSO DID YOU SEE HE LOST WEIGHT"

 

[hexer]

So you think that Sawyer made the creative team design a deliberately bad story, setting and sidequests... out of arrogance?

Arrogance leads to ignorance because an arrogant person loses contact with reality.
Such people then overestimate their competence, accomplishments, capabilities...
Exactly that happened here.
Sawyer hyped PoE as if it was the second coming of Jesus Golden Era of RPGs, everyone boarded the nostalgia train and Obsidian sold a million copies.
We criticized his work, he arrogantly ignored us and PoE2 bombed while utilizing an "improved" PoE1 template.
According to Sawyer, it shouldn't have bombed (Obsidian planned on selling at least 580,000 copies https://www.dsogaming.com/news/pill...d-110k-copies-worldwide-until-september-2018/ ) but according to reality it did (it sold 110,000 copies).
Which leads us back at the start of this post .. an arrogant person loses contact with reality.
This isn't something I pulled out of my ass, it's an accepted theory in psychology.
https://academic.oup.com/brain/article/132/5/1396/354862

 

[Kyl Von Kull]

Here's a detailed list of what she did in Deadfire and a less detailed list of Tyranny: http://www.fictivate.com/game-design.html

Huh, she actually wrote the most enjoyable parts of Deadfire :D Tho did she design it/that principi stuff also?

It looks like Starks did the writing for most of the important Principi, but the bulk of the quest design was done by Jorge Salgado for Fort Deadlight and Bobby Null for the faction quest chain.

Because Pillars is an incredibly text-heavy game, Salgado also had to work closely with the writers when designing the quest. “Once I created the bare bones of the quest and worked out how everything flows, I passed it over to a writer,” he says. “In this case it was Megan Starks, who was the writer for this area, and she did a great job. She gave the pirates of Fort Deadlight a lot of personality, and she had suggestions about the characters that would inspire me to develop different kinds of gameplay.”

I ask Salgado if he was expecting this kind of reaction when he was designing it. “I did,” he says. “I’m not going to be falsely humble, because I’m really proud of it! But I also have to thank Megan, who gave voice and nuance to the characters

Definitely some good stuff in there. The difference between her best writing and her worst writing is really... stark.

 

[PorkBarrellGuy]

The difference between her best writing and her worst writing is really... stark.

BOOOOOOOO

 

[Roguey]

Here's a detailed list of what she did in Deadfire and a less detailed list of Tyranny: http://www.fictivate.com/game-design.html

Ah I see she's the one responsible for throwing a fit over that jilted stalker plot.

Sawyer seems far too extrovert and media-happy to be on the spectrum.

There are extroverted spergs. They're incredibly annoying. I read an article a mother wrote about her hfa son who really wanted to be a door greeter for the fancy apartment they lived in and he was fired because he kept asking the people who lived there personal, invasive questions (e.g. "Where are you going?" when leaving "Who's this?" when they were accompanied by someone he didn't know). He couldn't not do it.

Anyway, Josh isn't much of an extrovert. He hates parties and looks extremely uncomfortable around large groups of loud people, as that Kickstarter livestream demonstrated.

 

[Brancaleone]

Anyway, Josh isn't much of an extrovert. He hates parties and looks extremely uncomfortable around large groups of loud people, as that Kickstarter livestream demonstrated.

Does he feel comfortable with stalkers around him?

 

[2house2fly]

Arrogance leads to ignorance because an arrogant person loses contact with reality.
Such people then overestimate their competence, accomplishments, capabilities...
Exactly that happened here.
Sawyer hyped PoE as if it was the second coming of Jesus Golden Era of RPGs, everyone boarded the nostalgia train and Obsidian sold a million copies.
We criticized his work, he arrogantly ignored us and PoE2 bombed while utilizing an "improved" PoE1 template.
According to Sawyer, it shouldn't have bombed (Obsidian planned on selling at least 580,000 copies https://www.dsogaming.com/news/pill...d-110k-copies-worldwide-until-september-2018/ ) but according to reality it did (it sold 110,000 copies).
Which leads us back at the start of this post .. an arrogant person loses contact with reality.
This isn't something I pulled out of my ass, it's an accepted theory in psychology.
https://academic.oup.com/brain/article/132/5/1396/354862

Sawyer did not hype up POE as any such thing. And do you really think the game bombed because he didn't use RPGcodex specifically as a guide? Since we're bringing up psychology and all, I have to ask... are you sure all this talk of arrogant people losing touch with reality isn't projection?

 

[Beastro]

There are extroverted spergs. They're incredibly annoying.

I ran by one this week at uni. Was printing out an essay and noticed an autistic guy standing around this table of people randomly listing off facts about our provincial capital in a desperately friendly, but monotone voice as he rocked back and forth.

 

[hexer]

Sawyer did not hype up POE as any such thing.

Let me refresh your memory.
PoE KS video starts with "brought to you by creative minds behind" Fallout 1/2, FNV, IWD I/II, Arcanum, TOEE, SW KOTOR II, and PST.
After that the screen shows "featuring the talents of legendary game designers" MCA, Josh Sawyer, Tim Cain.

Here's the link https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/obsidian/project-eternity

Since we're bringing up psychology and all, I have to ask... are you sure all this talk of arrogant people losing touch with reality isn't projection?

Haha, really funny if you believe everybody's projecting the things they discuss.
You probably confused your history teacher with a Nazi when he thought you WWII lessons or police officers with criminals.
How did you manage to survive for so long?
Anyway, if I would be an arrogant man who lost touch with reality, I would probably live in my own reality and wouldn't engage you in conversation at all.

 

[Quillon]

Let me refresh your memory.
PoE KS video starts with "brought to you by creative minds behind" Fallout 1/2, FNV, IWD I/II, Arcanum, TOEE, SW KOTOR II, and PST.
After that the screen shows "featuring the talents of legendary game designers" MCA, Josh Sawyer, Tim Cain.

Here's the link https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/obsidian/project-eternity

Obsidian hyped up the game as such, why are you singling out SAWYA?

 

[2house2fly]

Let me refresh your memory.
PoE KS video starts with "brought to you by creative minds behind" Fallout 1/2, FNV, IWD I/II, Arcanum, TOEE, SW KOTOR II, and PST.
After that the screen shows "featuring the talents of legendary game designers" MCA, Josh Sawyer, Tim Cain.

Here's the link https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/obsidian/project-eternity

This is a sales pitch. Did Josh Sawyer write it? In the video he talks about what he thought people liked about the IE games, and seems fairly matter of fact. Some comments from him close to the game's release:

I see a ton of things we could improve about the game/systems, but it's a lot of fun as-is. I'm about 65 hours in on a Hard play through. I'm not doing a complete run but I've done a good amount of the side content. The crit path stuff eventually becomes relatively easy when you're over-leveled and over-geared, but that's pretty much what we expected.

We've already released two pretty low-bug games (Dungeon Siege III and South Park) but it typically takes a brand/company's reputation about a decade to recover. Right now I'd say PoE has more bugs than DS3 and SP, but far fewer than any of the other titles OEI has worked on. PoE is also a much more complex/variable game than DS3 and SP in a lot of ways, so some of that is to be expected.

There's not much point in me speculating on when the patch will go live. The fixes are in and it's being tested. If someone finds a major problem either with the fix or something else, we're not going to release the patch until it's been dealt with.

 

[Cael]

90% of the time, when I read a new post on this forum it feels like a rehash of older posts. I think I might have brain damage. Please help.

No brain damage.
I'm afraid it is a psychological condition: You are a masochist. Like the rest of us.

*sends thesheeep to New Zealand* Now you know what being a masochist really means, bud.

I'd go there eventually, anyway.
Wanna see the nature and eat all the nommos! What? My life goal is "eat all the things".

A sheep willingly offering itself to New Zealand... Poos! Where are you? :D

we are very particular about our sheep

seeing as there are like 40 zillion of them we can be a little bit choosy when it comes to selecting a perfect mate

i dont want any old, daggy-arsed mutton, i demand quality

40? What did you guys do to the other 20??? No wait. On second thoughts, I don't wanna know...

 

[Bohr]

I sometimes wonder how much less focus there would be on Sawyer around here if Roguey hadn't done such an effective stalker routine a few years ago. Those "pretty much all RPGs get it wrong" sig quotes alone were pretty triggering

 

[Deleted Member 22431]

This is an illness that afflicts many former fans of crpgs. You see it even here, on the codex, many people just blindly worship the oldies and shout "decline" to anything new. While we do live in the age of decline in general, there are still good games to play today. It is just that they don't enjoy playing crpgs anymore, not really.

Recent games I enjoy playing:

Battle Brothers (more than one hundred hours clocked in)

Underrail (more than two hundred hours clocked in)

Age of Decadence (more than three hundred hours clocked in)

Dungeon Rats (more than one hundred hours clocked in)

These are just the ones from the top of my head. Anyone who bothers to look around will find out that the most vocal critics of this batch of popamole isometric games love these and/or other CRPGs. They are not former gamers. They are passionate gamers that have standards because they understand the genre.

So what they have are the nostalgia and memories of the games they used to play, in contrast to the new games that they attempt to get into today but are unable. They don't enjoy them anymore... Being an oldfag sucks.

Bullshit. What we have are objective criteria to judge games: itemization, exploration, character building, combat system, story, C&C, etc. The recent batch of popamole isometric, especially the ones made by Obsidian, fail the test. Of course, Obsidian was never any good in anything besides C&C. Now they fail in this too.

There is a reason supposed "masterpieces" like Planescape Torment never got many sales, even in the niche that actually plays CRPGs... The game was a slog. Many people would call it a visual novel rather than a crpg. They are exaggerating of course, but there is some validity to that claim. Yes PS:T had great story and C&C, but people want to play games... If they wanted to read a book, they would buy the PS:T novel…

You have no idea what you are talking about, do you? What makes the game special is not C&C (the game is mostly linear), but the fact that the exploration of the game world is tied to a journey of self-discovery. Of course, the game also has a D&D system, tons of combat, etc. It is not great, but it adds pacing. It also has an unusual itemization and weapons, which adds to the setting and the charm of the game. The game has a lot of virtues. It’s unique.

 

[Deleted Member 22431]

Sawyer was very vocal with his opinions even when he was a nobody.

Your defense is worse than my criticism. So he always acted like he was God’s gift to cRPG players? How is that is supposed to make him look any better?

The idea that he doesn’t care about CRPGs is absurd. He just has some bad ideas and he lacks the imagination to understand why they’re bad.

What is absurd is your assumption that someone can be passionate about a subject he doesn’t understand. It’s a performative contradiction. If he is passionate about X, he will learn enough to become proficient in X. Therefore, if he is not proficient in X, he is not passionate about X.

 

[Quillon]

ffs stop using "popamole" for everything.

 

[J_C]

The idea that he doesn’t care about CRPGs is absurd. He just has some bad ideas and he lacks the imagination to understand why they’re bad.

What is absurd is your assumption that someone can be passionate about a subject he doesn’t understand. It’s a performative contradiction. If he is passionate about X, he will learn enough to become proficient in X. Therefore, if he is not proficient in X, he is not passionate about X.

What a load of bullshit. I'm passionate about RPGs, but I don't replay them all the time, neither I play all the RPGs I find. But I'm constantly on the look for RPGs I enjoy. And anyone who knows me know that I'm not proficient in them, I'm decent, but nothing more.

Instead of passionate, you probably mean obsessed.