Obsidian General Discussion Thread

[axedice]

You, me and half the codex will throw our salaries at the screen and it still won't be enough. Witcher 3 cost $80m to make, Skyrim $85m - 100m. Even when you take half of those numbers for marketing they're still way too high for crowdfunding. Which brings us to investment models. Since Urquhart is already on the advisory board of Fig, I think it will be their main course. They drop some important names here and there, create some hype and with a successful concept they might persuade third party investors to fund the game alongside internet enthusiasts and Obsidian itself.

Or they are lucky enough to find a publisher who would not interfere with their design decisions or demand the rights for IP, but well no one is that lucky.

And if you want to make a game with modern visuals, do it Witcher3 style with hairworks and all that shit for high end GPUs and 30fps locked shitty graphics for consoles. It worked for CDPR, it'll work for anyone. Porting for consoles would mean almost doubling your revenues in a sandbox RPG so it'll be inevitable.

 

[Roguey]

Feargus said that open world games can cost less than one would think (meaning he's willing to skip out on detailed cutscenes).

 

[AN4RCHID]

idk Skyrim didn't have detailed cutscenes and all the content was boring copy pasta, and it still cost the GDP of a small nation to develop.

 

[Maggot]

Skyrim had a ton of marketing though.

 

[Roguey]

idk Skyrim didn't have detailed cutscenes

It had some. The opening particularly.

and it still cost the GDP of a small nation to develop.

Skyrim's listed budget includes marketing. A quote from Zyklon Beekers, who's in a position to have an informed opinion on budgets

http://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/inde...make-baldurs-gate-3.78936/page-6#post-2419482

I was gonna go "that's higher than I would've thought", but it's development ánd marketing. Then yeah. I mean, don't know that site and they probably pulled the number out of their ass coz none of this stuff is public from Bethesda, but it sounds fairly realistic for development and marketing both.

$100 million is GTA IV's reported production budget, excluding marketing. Same for Red Dead Redemption by popular estimate. Those type of AAAs are in another universe, though.

GTA's budget buster: all those freaking cutscenes

 

[Sizzle]

I thought Maneha had a great concept but the execution of it was fucking awful from her super chipper personality to her awful voice actress. Beyond her, though, I thought Patel's stuff was great.

Exactly. We have a supposedly battle-hardened veteran raider who sounds like a hyper teenage girl. That sort of VA works for an Imoen-like character. I also didn't care for her "conflict", it was basically just a rehash of Aloth's.

 

[Sannom]

Aloth and Maneha's conflicts were opposites, actually. They have the same source (awakening), sure, but Aloth's problem is that one of his previous lives now resides inside his head and occasionally takes overs without Aloth having any of her memories, whereas Maneha has just the one memory from a previous life that eats her up.

 

[Sizzle]

Aloth and Maneha's conflicts were opposites, actually. They have the same source (awakening), sure, but Aloth's problem is that one of his previous lives now resides inside his head and occasionally takes overs without Aloth having any of her memories, whereas Maneha has just the one memory from a previous life that eats her up.

How is that "opposite"? They both suffer because of their awakenings, and want to be rid of them.

For their conflicts to be "opposites", it would have to be something like Maneha reveling in hers (maybe because she remembers some useful skills from her former life), and searching for a way to bring out even more of her past lives.

 

[Hyperion]

"But...but...she's a Barbarian who talks like a 21 year old girl. See? We can break boundaries and make ORIGINAL characters!"

Pretty sure that was their logic. And don't worry they were praised for Maneha on other sites, so expect more ZANINESS just like her. It was nice having companions who contributed the occasional one-liner but for the most part kept their fucking mouths shut. Hope they don't break from that.

 

[Sizzle]

"But...but...she's a Barbarian who talks like a 21 year old girl. See? We can break boundaries and make ORIGINAL characters!"

Pretty sure that was their logic. And don't worry they were praised for Maneha on other sites, so expect more ZANINESS just like her. It was nice having companions who contributed the occasional one-liner but for the most part kept their fucking mouths shut. Hope they don't break from that.

I liked most of the companions (at least in the base game), but, with a couple of exceptions (like Durance) they did feel a bit too plain.

For PoE 2, I hope they find a balance between normal characters who are grown-ups, but maybe with some hint of exoticism and uniqueness to them (Devil of Caroc was a good example, too bad she's just not that interesting as a character), without going full retard BioWare.

 

[Infinitron]

Obsidian have a regular Twitch streaming schedule now:



Looks like we might be getting weekly Tyranny Dev Streams.

 

[Ninjerk]

Obsidian have a regular Twitch streaming schedule now:



Looks like we might be getting weekly Tyranny Dev Streams.

Jaesun you can watch a dev stream of your, curiously, favorite game.

 

[LESS T_T]

http://www.devgameclub.com/blog/2016/10/19/dgc-ep-033-interview-with-tim-cain-and-leonard-boyarsky

DGC Ep 033: Interview with Tim Cain and Leonard Boyarsky

Welcome to our fifth and final episode examining 1997's classic RPG Fallout. We are lucky enough to interview Tim Cain and Leonard Boyarsky, Producer/Lead Programmer and Art Director respectively on Fallout as well as two of the three founding members of Troika Games. Dev Game Club looks at classic video games and plays through them over several episodes, providing commentary.

Podcast breakdown:
0:38 Interview with Tim Cain and Leonard Boyarsky!
1:01:10 Break
1:01:35 Geek-outro

Issues covered: the Wild West of early studio game development, the meta-installer, making engines in your spare time, tabletop after-hours, abstracting the operating system, GURPS character generator, working you way up, pizza and game dev, RPG renaissance, bold theme choices, filtering passionate ideas, making your dream game, career paths into game development, clubhouse Interplay and a creative atmosphere, business incursion, from the garage to the office park, right place right time, QA preferring your game over being paid, By Gamers For Gamers, making your colleagues laugh, companions in scripting, wearing multiple hats, making a Tarrasque into a Death Claw, making heads from clay and digitizing, cavalier oblique and making the tools work, bringing various sensibilities to the game, throwing a party for your return, a family of talking raccoons, finding your creative partners, system and story *should* work together, what makes good level design, digging yourself a big hole, exposing variables and state to designers, managing teams of small size, ambient music, art influences, Vault Boy instead of icons, voice talent, everything coming together, consequences, "games should be fun," freedom, setting the world on fire, Tim Cain's grandfather and mother, constraints and necessity, Fallout DNA.

Games, people, and influences mentioned or discussed: Interplay, Maxis, Stonekeep, Troika Games, Arcanum, Vampire: The Masquerade, Blizzard, Diablo III, Obsidian Entertainment, Grand Slam Bridge, EA, Star Trek: 25th Anniversary, Jason Anderson, Carbine Studios, Wildstar, Rags to Riches, Lord of the Rings, D&D, GURPS, Earthdawn, Baldur's Gate, Icewind Dale, Black Isle, Wasteland, Tolkien, Mad Max, Doom, Nintendo, David Byrne, How Music Works, CGBG, LucasArts, Super Metroid, Star Wars, The Simpsons, Chris Taylor, BioShock, Ken Levine, Ambient Isolationism, Aphex Twin, Brian Eno, Depeche Mode, Monopoly, Richard Dean Anderson, Richard Moll, Tony Shalhoub, Ron Perlman, David Warner, CCH Pounder, Night Court, Monk, Wings, Fallout 2, The Inkspots, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, Dr. Strangelove, Fallout 3, Jonah Lobe, Temple of Elemental Evil.

MP3: http://traffic.libsyn.com/devgameclub/033_-_DGC.mp3?dest-id=358622

One of the hosts, Brett Douville, is former Bethesda Games lead programmer.

 

[LESS T_T]

Well, it's mostly about the development of Fallout 1 as they outlined. No mention of the new project other than Tim is currently Game Director at Obsidian (which is no surprising).

 

[Infinitron]

 

[Drax]

inb4 previous footage of him writing it.

 

[Starwars]

The podcast with Tim and Leonard was fantastic. So good. Great to hear their enthusiasm about it seeping through, and some fun stories about the development.

 

[Infinitron]

New Vegas, Pillars of Eternity 2, Pillars of Eternity, Stormlands.

 

[PlanHex]

"Started play at 10:39, died via shotgun blast @ 10:41" wat

 

[vortex]

Josh Sawyer is preparing to play New Vegas

 

[Excidium II]

Josh Sawyer is preparing to play New Vegas

Now? I hope he plays with Jsawyer

 

[pippin]

Dude, Sawyer really has a female brain. Those notes look too organized for a man, and yet he complains about them being a small chaos.

 

[Zed]

Sawyer just said this on stream:
He will be working on a historic game after the game he's working on now (pillars 2).
i.e. the darklands-ish game.

 

[Neanderthal]

Can't really get me hopes up, he'll have to make concessions to idiot playtesters at Obs an players who want more automated games wi less features, an any incline in game'll be pissed away cos o this.

 

[Roguey]

Can't really get me hopes up, he'll have to make concessions to idiot playtesters at Obs an players who want more automated games wi less features, an any incline in game'll be pissed away cos o this.

It's going to be a low budget passion project given to him as a reward for all the success he's given Obsidian Entertainment. Feargus Urquhart doesn't expect blockbuster numbers, so he doesn't have to tune it for a wide audience they know they're not going to get.