Obsidian General Discussion Thread

[LESS T_T]

EricN (the marketing guy) comments on r/Fallout thread talking about what didn't like about New Vegas:

https://www.reddit.com/r/Fallout/comments/7aavr1/new_vegass_flaws/dp8zhcz/

We didn't make enough money off of it. :-P /s

...

In all seriousness, I'd say a few things:

• The original release was buggy as hell and made our brand look bad. We had to contend with being known as a studio that ships buggy games for a while after that. But, sometimes, that stuff is a blessing in disguise as it makes you take stock of your house and ask some hard questions. We've made a lot of improvements to how we do things since, and are still getting better every day.

And a couple personal nitpicks:

• Some of the quests involved a hell of a lot of backtracking, which, if you did them in the mix with other quests, wasn't a big deal, but if you're like me and you like to do one quest at a time, became a major pain in the butt. An example is Aba Daba Honey Moon.
• The perk that causes enemies to explode when you kill them with energy weapons was poorly implemented. The explosion also damages you, so if you kill enemies near you with energy weapons, you generally kill or severely wound yourself, too. This makes energy weapons really risky to use against melee enemies and punishes you, rather than rewards you, for leveling up in energy weapons.

Well, New Vegas was before my time with the company, but I'd say it was a combination of factors. We tend to scope things really big, and then have a really hard time cutting stuff down. Then we scramble to keep features, areas, characters, narrative, etc., and the development team can get overwhelmed. At least, that's how it used to be. We're getting better with scoping now!

About what marketing guys do in a game company (and Obsidian):

I can't speak for other marketing folks, but largely, your job will depend on a few things:

• What sort of company you work for (both in terms of business line and corporate culture)
• What your specific role within the marketing department is
• How proactive you are about seeking out and grabbing new work areas
• How big your marketing and support staff is

At Obsidian, we have a relatively small marketing team, and I am very proactive both in terms of my interest in expanding the role that our team has and in terms of sticking my nose where it doesn't belong, so "marketing" here covers a lot of stuff: community, market research, sales support, publisher relations, PR, traditional marketing, and other stuff. Because our staff is fairly small, we all just do a lot of this stuff whenever it needs doing.

However, I used to work for a much larger company in which there was much greater striation in terms of roles and responsibilities, and management's expectations thereon. It will depend a lot on what situation you find yourself in.

That's pretty general, but I hope it helps.

And it seems he's writing a blog post about the DLC survey:

I am literally writing the blog as we speak! It has taken significantly longer to get done and approved than I expected. But it will be ready for public viewing soon, I promise.

 

[IHaveHugeNick]

Might be just random articles at this point honestly. And I wholeheartedly support F:NV becoming this beloved cool classic to the extent that even mainstream gamurs recognize it as such. F4 may have sold well but it was also being slaughtered on a lot of the social media.

 

[santino27]

These are still coming?

I assume they're coming from Paradox's coffers, given their random marketing moves.

I hope we will someday learn wtf this was all about. So much random buildup, financed by a publisher, that doesn't seem to have led to anything. (I still don't see Tyranny DLC having been the purpose of all of it, but don't know what else would warrant the effort from Paradox)

 

[fantadomat]

Might be just random articles at this point honestly. And I wholeheartedly support F:NV becoming this beloved cool classic to the extent that even mainstream gamurs recognize it as such. F4 may have sold well but it was also being slaughtered on a lot of the social media.

It will become classic after tree years.

 

[fantadomat]

Might be just random articles at this point honestly. And I wholeheartedly support F:NV becoming this beloved cool classic to the extent that even mainstream gamurs recognize it as such. F4 may have sold well but it was also being slaughtered on a lot of the social media.

It will become classic after tree years.

Buahahaha should stop drink and write.

 

[Iznaliu]

I hope we will someday learn wtf this was all about. So much random buildup, financed by a publisher, that doesn't seem to have led to anything. (I still don't see Tyranny DLC having been the purpose of all of it, but don't know what else would warrant the effort from Paradox)

I don't think Paradox is terribly competent at marketing, so we may never know.

 

[fantadomat]

I hope we will someday learn wtf this was all about. So much random buildup, financed by a publisher, that doesn't seem to have led to anything. (I still don't see Tyranny DLC having been the purpose of all of it, but don't know what else would warrant the effort from Paradox)

I don't think Paradox is terribly competent at marketing, so we may never know.

Is PoE 2 going to be published by paradox? They are really shit at such things,they just splash a few videos on youtube,and twitch and call it a day .

 

[Sentinel]

No, Versus Evil are publishing it.

 

[fantadomat]

No, Versus Evil are publishing it.

Hope they are not that shit,but that is not a big achievement.

 

[Iznaliu]

Hope they are not that shit,but that is not a big achievement.

However, I do worry that they will mess things up.

 

[Drax]

EricN (the marketing guy) comments on r/Fallout thread talking about what didn't like about New Vegas:

but if you're like me and you like to do one quest at a time

Fucking weirdo is what you are.

 

[Iznaliu]

Fucking weirdo is what you are.

Explain the reasoning behind your opinion.

 

[Prime Junta]

Fucking weirdo is what you are.

Explain the reasoning behind your opinion.

Playing NV by doing one quest at a time

no wonder Josh despises his public

 

[Roguey]

When playing RPGs I typically do one quest at a time.

Obviously I made exceptions for those kinds of quests where it's clear you're supposed to do them along the way and not go out of your way to do them.

 

[Inf0mercial]

I'm beginning to understand why people complain about Backtracking in some random as fuck games.

You enter a Hub area you pick up all the quests in that area then you go along and do them, many of them are linked to a certain area.

Why the fuck would you do them one at a time and put yourself through that backtracking? I don't even have sympathy for you at that point your just being retarded for the sake of it.

 

[Roguey]

I'm beginning to understand why people complain about Backtracking in some random as fuck games.

You enter a Hub area you pick up all the quests in that area then you go along and do them, many of them are linked to a certain area.

Why the fuck would you do them one at a time and put yourself through that backtracking? I don't even have sympathy for you at that point your just being retarded for the sake of it.

I need narrative cohesiveness.

But yeah I don't collect one at a time, I collect as many as there are in a single area and then do them one at a time.

 

[fantadomat]

Well in NV is hard to do many at a time,most quests are in unique place. Also you have fast travel.

 

[Iznaliu]

Well in NV is hard to do many at a time,most quests are in unique place. Also you have fast travel.

People are willing to do all sorts of things if they believe it increases immersion.

 

[Hellion]

 

[razvedchiki]

pillars of banality III: the balance

 

[undecaf]

The Geometry of Tim Cain: An Euclidean Adventure

 

[Quillon]

This means incoming announcement?

 

[fantadomat]

Chapter 11

 

[Infinitron]

This means incoming announcement?

Either that or they're trying to get people to suggest a title?

and lol of course the replies are full of "NEW VEGAS 2 AND KOTOR 3 PLZ"

 

[Quillon]

Given how they did countdown to obvious with pictures etc for Deadfire for a week, we'd have to wait much longer for this countdown to unknown. This is the first of many teases .