Obsidian General Discussion Thread

[ArchAngel]

Anthony Davis badler
So when are we getting an isometric pathfinder CRPG guys?

When beamdog makes it :D

 

[Prime Junta]

Anthony Davis badler
So when are we getting an isometric pathfinder CRPG guys?

ugh no plz

 

[Duraframe300]

Kazunori Aruga
Lead Artist at Obsidian Entertainment

On PoE2?

 

[Roguey]

Great news for Expedition: Subtitle fans!



Unless you hate that is (or interpret that as "always do the opposite of what Sawyer would do").

 

[Infinitron]

Great news for Expedition: Subtitle fans!

Time to play E:C?

 

[Roguey]

Time to play E:C?

Eh, I don't think I'll like it.

The meltdown ironyuri had because his review was criticized for being too positive was great though.

 

[LESS T_T]

So many faces: http://nicolecaldwell.com/2016/04/01/obsidian-entertainment-celebrates-release-of-tyranny/

 

[Prime Junta]

"Celebrates release of Tyranny?" what is this madness

 

[Infinitron]

Anthony Davis Tell us more.

 

[Rahdulan]

So many faces: http://nicolecaldwell.com/2016/04/01/obsidian-entertainment-celebrates-release-of-tyranny/

Is this the new hip face of Obsidian saying "we're not your grandad's old fogey RPG developer" or something?

 

[Anthony Davis]

Anthony Davis Tell us more.

No, the photographer is just mistaken - well meaning, but wrong. No big deal.

This was a combination release party for the following games:

Dungeon Siege 3 (we never had one)
Pathfinder
Armored Warfare

Maybe Pillars of Eternity is included in that, but I think PoE already had their release party, courtesy of Paradox - and the poster was just there to get signed.

 

[Roguey]

Drawing attention to that guy who looks really uncomfortable being there seems rude.

I imagine the faaaaaalaming guy enjoyed it though.

 

[Infinitron]

The Lost Sawyer Talk:



There's no GDC Europe 2008 or GDC Paris at the GDC Vault website, but he found the slides: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/58877228/Leaving_the_Door_Open_Paris_GDC_JES.pdf

 

[LESS T_T]

If there is one, Jason Scott may know: http://ascii.textfiles.com/archives/2739

 

[Infinitron]

http://web.archive.org/web/20081115075951/http://www.parisgdc.com/conf/conf.php?lang=en&conf=78

One site wrote about that talk: http://www.develop-online.net/news/obsidian-mod-makers-won-t-tolerate-poor-toolchains/0103033

Obsidian: 'Mod makers won't tolerate poor toolchains'

Paris GDC: Lead designer Josh Sawyer on how Neverwinter Nights 2 changes angered the mod community

In a session at Paris GDC, Obsidian lead designer Joshua Sawyer discussed the problems the team faced when creating Neverwinter Nights 2, a game designed to be expanded and changed by users.

A sequel to Bioware's original Neverwinter Nights, NWN2 had to not only provide a better game than its predecessor but also to expand upon Bioware's hugely popular Aurora toolset to give users greater modding potential.

"BioWare's approach to the Neverwinter Nights toolset was to go for ease-of-use, so that people could get small things running quickly and then expand from there," said Sawyer. "Obsidian's approach was to cater for the hardcore, though - dramatically increase the level of control, meaning that more things could be altered. That would make the barrier to entry higher, but we thought that would similarly raise the quality of what was produced."

As such, Obsidian ditched the tile-based exterior sections for heightmapped terrain - which, while giving a lot more scope for variety and finely-designed areas, increased the construction time by ten times with artists having to hand-place trees and paint textures onto the terrain by hand. "While this is bearable for people who are being paid to do it, many users are put off by the effort required," said Sawyer.

One thing that also limited end-user creativity was that the company didn't clear end-user use of RAD Tools' Granny animation middleware, which it had used on the product, meaning that users could not create custom animations.

While there were certainly aspects of the toolset that the team improved - in particular the conversation editor and the toolset's plug-in architecture - the overall response from the community at the beginning was poor - or, as Sawyer put it, users 'backlashing' over a more unfriendly toolkit.

And while it may seem that the company fluffed its chance with Neverwinter Nights 2, continual patches - and improvements brought about during the development of the game's expansion packs - have helped address some of the issues that disappointed the community at launch, and have helped shape the development of the next generation of Obsidian's tools now being used on both the un-named Aliens RPG and forthcoming espionage RPG Alpha Protocol.

 

[deuxhero]

Anthony Davis badler
So when are we getting an isometric pathfinder CRPG guys?

Really all they need to do is make a turn based adaption of one of the PF modules (Kingmaker is the best suited for a cRPG adaption due to its non-linearity) with mod tools like NWN.

 

[Yuri Gagarin]

 

[Infinitron]

Roguey Duraframe300 Rather amusing thread on the Obsidian forums: http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/85839-obsidians-creative-direaction/

I wonder who RingMachine is on the Codex.

 

[Drax]

 

[Yuri Gagarin]

The dude to the right has a weird hairdo. Isn't the left guy Mr. Cain's husband?

 

[Flou]

Roguey Duraframe300 Rather amusing thread on the Obsidian forums: http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/85839-obsidians-creative-direaction/

I wonder who RingMachine is on the Codex.

The guy is clearly Codex material

 

[Infinitron]

Roguey Duraframe300 Rather amusing thread on the Obsidian forums: http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/85839-obsidians-creative-direaction/

I wonder who RingMachine is on the Codex.

The guy is clearly Codex material

He's a troll, of course: http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/84871-game-of-the-year/?p=1782468

I'll leave that for the Obsidian fanboys over there to figure out for themselves.

 

[Flou]

Roguey Duraframe300 Rather amusing thread on the Obsidian forums: http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/85839-obsidians-creative-direaction/

I wonder who RingMachine is on the Codex.

The guy is clearly Codex material

He's a troll, of course: http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/84871-game-of-the-year/?p=1782468

I'll leave that for the Obsidian fanboys over there to figure out for themselves.

Well that was obvious from the beginning. I'm a bit masochistic and tend to fend words with trolls just to work on my arguing skills in English

 

[Roguey]

Tabletop hacks can rest easy, they'll face no serious competition any time soon

i think the only way i would ever want to make a TTRPG is if money, time, and available talent for illustration were effectively unlimited.

 

[Theldaran]

Anthony Davis badler
So when are we getting an isometric pathfinder CRPG guys?

Really all they need to do is make a turn based adaption of one of the PF modules (Kingmaker is the best suited for a cRPG adaption due to its non-linearity) with mod tools like NWN.

I want an adaptation of Amber Scott's work. Screw D&D, give me more Amber&Scott.