Obsidian General Discussion Thread

[fantadomat]

I'd be hyped for a Sawyer studio but Avellone doesn't seem inclined to want to join a studio on a permanent basis and Cain/Boyarsky are stuck at Obsidian so it's really meh. The stars aren't aligned.

At risk of cold increasing, MCA might change his mind after personal circumstances change. Cain/Boyarsky may leave if Obsidian is sold. Ziets will likely leave InXile after W3. Cleve and Monty are waiting for the bat signal. A man can dream team.

Do you know a single case where the old fag magic devs managed to deliver to the promise of making new game like in the good old times? Numanuma,wasteland 2,poe,star scammer etc.

 

[Lahey]

Grimoire.

 

[fantadomat]

Grimoire.

A new way to spell manual.

 

[Cross]

The first time they made their own IP it was Alpha Protocol and their first game ever was Star Wars so that's a bit unfair.

Both of those are publisher-funded games. Obsidian didn't pitch a Star Wars RPG, they were handed the opportunity because Bioware declined to make a sequel to Kotor. And while Obsidian, Feargus specifically, did pitch Alpha Protocol to Sega, it was conceived as being very close to a conventional third-person shooter, and bizarrely enough it was Sega who had to force Obsidian to add more RPG elements.

When Obsidian wasn't as dependent on publishers anymore, they decided to make three high fantasy RPGs in a row, which is far more telling of their priorities. (Yes, Tyranny was funded by Paradox, but Obsidian obviously had far more leverage in that relationship than they did with their previous triple-A publishers.)

 

[Boleskine]

Well, IGN video is online

Youtube version

 

[DalekFlay]

I've seen a lot of people say this, but then you see stuff like Black Geyser fantasy shovelware blowing out Copper Dreams on Kickstarter. Fantasy just seems to get peoples' attention. It has a shallow but broad appeal.

People will line up for sci-fi and the like such as with Mass Effect and surely the coming Starfield, they just need that extra push like trusting the dev and seeing the massive marketing campaign. Fantasy is an instant-sell without all that, for whatever reason (nostalgia, reflex, etc.).

 

[Quillon]

Post. Apoc. is more acceptable than fantasy for a long while now. As I've claimed many times before, everybody got sick of fantasy except for nostalgic fucks who obviously haven't been agreeing with me on this

If Obs kickstarted a post apoc game instead of pillows back in dat day. it would have been a lot more successful than pillows fo-sure!

Realistic(not hardcore) > (high)Fantasy crap in this generation. See it.

I've seen a lot of people say this, but then you see stuff like Black Geyser fantasy shovelware blowing out Copper Dreams on Kickstarter. Fantasy just seems to get peoples' attention. It has a shallow but broad appeal.

Both of them are too much under the radar games, anyone interested in either of them are prolly old-skool types and yeah, what I said about them above.

 

[Molina]

Post. Apoc. is more acceptable than fantasy for a long while now. As I've claimed many times before, everybody got sick of fantasy except for nostalgic fucks who obviously en't been agreeing with me on this

If Obs kickstarted a post apoc game instead of pillows back in dat day. it would have been a lot more successful than pillows fo-sure!

Realistic(not hardcore) > (high)Fantasy crap in this generation. See it.

It's funny, because I'm sick of post apo games : Fallout 3, NV, 4 ; Wasteland 2 ; elex ; Mad Max, Underrail; Rage 2; The Last of Us ; Metro ; Stalker ; Horizon Zero Dawn, Nier, State of Decay, Division 1 &2; Days gone ; Dying Light, Kenshi...

 

[Life of the Party]

That's because those are poor man's apocalypses. We need the real deal.

 

[Quillon]

Post. Apoc. is more acceptable than fantasy for a long while now. As I've claimed many times before, everybody got sick of fantasy except for nostalgic fucks who obviously en't been agreeing with me on this

If Obs kickstarted a post apoc game instead of pillows back in dat day. it would have been a lot more successful than pillows fo-sure!

Realistic(not hardcore) > (high)Fantasy crap in this generation. See it.

It's funny, because I'm sick of post apo games : Fallout 3, NV, 4 ; Wasteland 2 ; elex ; Mad Max, Underrail; Rage 2; The Last of Us ; Metro ; Stalker ; Horizon Zero Dawn, Nier, State of Decay, Division 1 &2; Days gone ; Dying Light, Kenshi...

Talking about RPGs here... Anyway, don't care about console-exclusives so from the ones I played only NV is "good" among them as RPG, Wasteland 2 was mediocre.. to shit at times. Metro games are good "action" as is Stalker, Dying Light has good gameplay - shit story, State of Decays are repetitive as fuck shits. Bethouts are false hopes. Elex is elex and I couldn't stand Mad Max more than half an hour, boring as fuck.

Well most of them are shit but nearly all of them sold(and will sell) like hot cakes therefore post apoc is...very much acceptable.

 

[Roguey]

Post. Apoc. is more acceptable than fantasy for a long while now. As I've claimed many times before, everybody got sick of fantasy except for nostalgic fucks who obviously haven't been agreeing with me on this

Fallout 4 did really well, but Skyrim did exceptionally better.

If Obs kickstarted a post apoc game instead of pillows back in dat day. it would have been a lot more successful than pillows fo-sure!

Disagree, but we'll see how Wasteland 3 does compared to Deadfire.

 

[Quillon]

Fallout 4 did really well, but Skyrim did exceptionally better.

feb 2017: https://www.gamespot.com/articles/fallout-4-surpasses-skyrim-to-become-bethesdas-mos/1100-6447621/

Disagree, but we'll see how Wasteland 3 does compared to Deadfire.

If they can up their production quality to Deadfire's level, big if, it would be a fair comparison.

 

[IHaveHugeNick]

1h interview with Josh on IGN unfiltered.

 

[Quillon]

Pillars team is dissipating?

 

[Roguey]

Well that explains the depression-posting on her private account I noticed not too long ago. ~Fired~~Laid off~

 

[Cross]

Could Obsidian actually be finished for good this time? I bet Feargus really regrets that season pass now. With how hard the base game bombed, there's no chance they're ever going to come close to breaking even on those 3 DLC's, much less making a profit.

 

[Ninjerk]

Retweeted June 23

 

[Quillon]

Retweeted June 23

She didn't give the signs of working in a toxic work environment tho. She was all too happy drawing those CR portraits recently f.i.

 

[CaffeineConquistador]

Retweeted June 23

She didn't give the signs of working in a toxic work environment tho. She was all too happy drawing those CR portraits recently f.i.

So no Alpha Protocol 2. I actually enjoyed the first one and it seemed like it came out at the tail-end when “problematic” games could still be reliably put out.

 

[Haba]

Sing along

 

[Infinitron]

Are we going to pronounce Obsidian dead after every post-project layoff

Reminder, Beamdog still exists, inXile still exists. It's not so easy to kill a studio.

 

[Flou]

Are we going to pronounce Obsidian dead after every post-project layoff

Reminder, Beamdog still exists, inXile still exists. It's not so easy to kill a studio.

Yes!

Though I don't think these are actually bigger layoffs. Just some people being let go that they don't have project to work on. Otherwise Avellone would have already posted about the layoffs on his Twitter account.
Their marketing director probably deserved to get fired.

 

[frajaq]

everything rests on Project Indiana's shoulders, lets see what Tim "Geometric Shapes" Cain can do

 

[The Wall]

Reminder, Beamdog still exists

inXile still exists

It's not so easy to kill a studio.

But it seems it's rather easy to change the essence of what that studio was about to such degree that what remains of studio resembles it's past self as much as ghoul, zombie or lich resemble humans they once used to be. Basically such studios become nothing more but animated corpses.

In defence of Beamdog and InXile they more or less had no glorious past to desecrate which didn't stop some cough Beamdog cough to do that to other's glorious past...

 

[Latelistener]

Once the jewel of the gamedev now a studio of crumbling ruins and forgotten glory. The writers that fed it left, the place of ideas is now barren rock and endless, drifting sand. The Great Feargus devastated Obsidian, almost a half of its developers left during the Microsoft's blast that created the infamous Kickstarter campaign. The SJW sickness that followed it nearly succeeded in scaring out the rest. But studios rarely die with dignity. Man returned to Obsidian, devs seeking to make profit on the treasures of the past, oblivious to the weight of history around them as they squabbled on Twitter and Facebook.