Obsidian dev: not buying from Atari = death of CRPGs

[Kogorn]

It's labeled "defunct" according to the #1 most accurate source in the world.

 

[mondblut]

Is D&D actually the kiss of death? teh CURsE@!!

Stormfront/Beyond Software: passed on
Westwood: is no more
Dreamforge: ceased to be
U.S. Gold: expired and gone to meet his maker
SSI: is a stiff
Wizardworks: rests in peace
Micromagic: is pushing up the daisies
Interplay: his metabolic processes are now history
BIS: is off the twig
Troika: shuffled off 'is mortal coil
Atari: (about to) run down the curtain
Obsidian: (threatens to) join the bleedin' choir invisibile
BioWare: is an ex-Bioware

...I am sure I could come up with more dead developers and publishers who at some point of their career had a misfortune to be connected with D&D, but alas, I am out of "Dead Parrot" quotes.

 

[Ausir]

No they're not.

Interplay is not, but Black Isle pretty much is no more. Even IPLY's FOOL team doesn't use the name.

 

[Whispering Darkness]

Hope Obsidian doesn't close down. Still getting over Troika's demise. Sad day.

 

[SuicideBunny]

infogrames should have fucking died a long time ago.

waitaminute.. is he implying that shitty dnd rpgs = all pc rpgs?

 

[King Crispy]

Some brand new info here:

The release is taking longer so you jump to the conclusion that it is canceled or squashed. This is not the case.

During all this time, improvements and bugfixing are occurring with MoW to ensure it is compatible with the systems added in SoZ, and vice versa. So it's not like anything has been canceled.

Explains a lot about the long MoW delay. I'm thinking SoZ/MoW combined now?

Edit: Kudos to "wayninja" over there for teasing this info out of Ol' Grumpy.

 

[Wyrmlord]

The funny thing is: they are BOTH right.

A developer NEEDS to sell his game, but the customer can afford not to care. If the developer does not do things on the customer's terms, the customer takes his money elsewhere. The developer's business is hurt. (like awayninja said)

The developer might do what the market demands. Or he may simply move away from it. So the said product need not be made at all. (like Rob said)

But I believe it's a win-win situation. The customer is not buying something he does not want and the developer is not making something that will not sell. How is it a bad thing, people?

Or is it that, you want D&D games but not DRM? Well, you make your choice. Decide what is more important for you, rather than sitting on a fence.

I personally don't care for D&D. Custom-made rulesets have always been superior in PC RPGs than adapted ones. If it means they stop using the damn thing, then I am all for it. D&D != cRPGs. It won't be the death of cRPGs.

As for death of developers: the videogame industry is an entertainment industry. The entertainment industry is a speculation industry. A speculation industry is very risky business. I like videogames but I sure as fuck would not want to be in the business of making them.

 

[cutterjohn]

Don't really follow the MoW/NWN2 forums or anything, but I stumbled on this on the frontpage of NWVault and had to do a double-take. I even read through the whole topic, but context doesn't seem to make the message any less dumb.

Link:

Quote: Posted 09/26/08 06:12 (GMT) by wayninja

Don't let the corporate propaganda and thread closures fool you. Not buying MoW does serve a purpose.

Whether you agree with that purpose or not is up to you, but the whole "cut off your nose to spite your face" argument is bullocks.

There is no better way to express your displeasure at how a company treats you and handles the distribution of a product better than not buying that product.

So, in the end, if you feel the product and wait is worth it, by all means, buy it. If you feel that Atari should be sent a message, then don't. Of course all of this assumes the game will ever be released.

Then I project/guess the end result is that D&D games on PC will no longer occur, cutting out this displeased community.

Personally, I like my RPGs on the PC. But, if the market is no longer here then, if I was Atari, I would shift my target market.

Consoles are a much lower-cost platform to develop for since you don't have to worry about compatibility or DRM.

Now, as for personal attacks, there have been so many warnings in this forum, I can't even count them. The perma-bans are coming out. We have been more than patient and lenient with the enforcement of the Rules of Conduct here. No more warnings will be given.

Bolding mine. He's not even saying "WAH PIRACY IS RUINING PC GAMING" (though there's a bit of subtext for that). He's saying that if you don't like Atari's plan to introduce new DRM to NWN2 and delaying MoW, then... you contribute to the decline of CRPGs. If you just aren't interested in MoW or think it'll be a piece of shit, you contribute to the decline of CRPGs. No, what?

Is he trying to guilt-trip people into buying NWN2 products?

WTF is MoW?!

Beyong that BW still gets KUDOs from me for supporting mulitple platforms all the way to product death and beyond, even if their implementation(of a turn based RPG(that really horribly sucked ass)) sucked LARGE HAIRY donkey BALLS(pseudo ARPG).

 

[Brother None]

No they're not.

Interplay is not, but Black Isle pretty much is no more. Even IPLY's FOOL team doesn't use the name.

Actually as far as I know the Black Isle name was intended to be put on FOOL. If that's no longer the case, they had a change of heart for some reason.

 

[WalterKinde]

I guess the Spore fiasco didn't teach anything, delaying a game to add MORE drm.
I know NWN2 and expansions are not in the League of Spore in terms of customers but the backlash will be great if the drm is anything like Spore's.
Plus as ME, Bioshock, Spore have proven the drm is not going to help stop filesharing.

 

[Lesifoere]

WTF is MoW?!

Mysteries of Westgate, an "adventure pack" (read equivalent of NWN premium module) by the same people who made Darkness over Daggerford, which means that in all likelihood the writing in it will be crap and the story will be dull.

 

[The Feral Kid]

Not a surprise. You can't expect any better from those hacks at Obsidian.

 

[Pastel]

Not a surprise. You can't expect any better from those hacks at Obsidian.

You can't?

 

[inwoker]

Not a surprise. You can't expect any better from those hacks at Obsidian.

You can't?

He can't.

Not buying rpgs from Atari is stealing because nothing is removed from inventory.

 

[DraQ]

Not buying rpgs from Atari is stealing because nothing is removed from inventory.

 

[Lesifoere]

Not a surprise. You can't expect any better from those hacks at Obsidian.

?

If you mean MoW... no. It's not by Obsidian; it's by Ossian Studio, a bunch of hacks who are technically competent but whose writers are really fucking shite.

 

[Pastel]

So what was so bad about Darkness over Daggerford or whatever their previous module was called?

 

[Wyrmlord]

Speaking of writing, I never understood why people who make NWN2 modules go through the effort of writing verbose pretentious descriptions of the landscape and setting. "You are standing in the middle of a vast forest, with a quiet isolation that gives you peace. A deer comes and the sun's light illuminates its tawny hide."

Ugh, neither is that good writing, nor is it necessary. Descriptions are for things that can't be shown in the game, and are necessary for the player to understand. It is superfluous when the game's engine is adequate for simply showing that thing, especially landscape. The main purpose of your game is to entertain foremost, and not to show off your verbose fancy phrases.

But either way, I don't think story or writing matters otherwise. If a module has fun combat, good quests, and well-designed areas, then it has everything needed for a good module.

 

[Pastel]

In weird settings like Planescape descriptions are important to create of feel of weird fucking stuff. But otherwise, yeah, such things are neither necessary nor entertaining to read.

 

[Lesifoere]

So what was so bad about Darkness over Daggerford or whatever their previous module was called?

Basically, it wasn't so much bad as being deathly dull. The story went something like "okay, you're traveling with a caravan and BAM villains appear out of nowhere and kidnap your friend." You're not given any reason to care about said friend, even less of a reason than to care about Imoen in BG2--I think there's barely one line of exchange with the kidnapped woman. After that, it's a long, tiresome sequence of flat dialogue, cliches, flatter dialogue, and gameplay that's about as engaging as spooning out your eyeballs. The mass of bugs didn't help. The vaunted stronghold is a tiny and miserable thing. About the only thing they did worth ooooh-aaaahing over was the worldmap.

And to think they were originally going to release DoD as a premium module, which'd have required you to actually pay for it.

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

Speaking of writing, I never understood why people who make NWN2 modules go through the effort of writing verbose pretentious descriptions of the landscape and setting. "You are standing in the middle of a vast forest, with a quiet isolation that gives you peace. A deer comes and the sun's light illuminates its tawny hide."

Ugh, neither is that good writing, nor is it necessary. Descriptions are for things that can't be shown in the game, and are necessary for the player to understand. It is superfluous when the game's engine is adequate for simply showing that thing, especially landscape. The main purpose of your game is to entertain foremost, and not to show off your verbose fancy phrases.

But either way, I don't think story or writing matters otherwise. If a module has fun combat, good quests, and well-designed areas, then it has everything needed for a good module.

True dat.

Another thing that bothers me is the dialogue. Since either it's non-existant or overtly verbose, but even then lacking any purpose or effect. This is especially painful in the Bishop Romance Mod, where the average number of choices is 7, but they do jack shit. Not even alignment or influence shifts. Nothing. Unless you count "Bishop I don't think our relationship is working out" (basically a "don't want" button, since otherwise the mod seems to be fully railroaded).

But yeah, instead of having fucktons of purple prose you should just make a proper forest with the engine.

 

[Wyrmlord]

Bishop's mod is a flirt simulator. That's what it is intended to be. Sure it might not be my or your kind of thing, but I don't think it was intended to be otherwise anyway. Supposedly, there are people who like that sort of stuff, and I suppose they get enjoyment out of flirting with virtual characters.

*shudders*

 

[Jedi_Learner]

I see Rob McGinnis is telling everyone to take it to private messages now that people are calling him up on what he has written. What a coward.

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

Bishop's mod is a flirt simulator. That's what it is intended to be. Sure it might not be my or your kind of thing, but I don't think it was intended to be otherwise anyway. Supposedly, there are people who like that sort of stuff, and I suppose they get enjoyment out of flirting with virtual characters.

*shudders*

Shudders indeed.

But the worst part is that the writing is horrendous. Just wait until the "daydream" flirt option in my LP of this...

 

[BethesdaLove]

The threadstarter is a retard and cant read. [/defending rob]