Obsidian General Discussion Thread

[santino27]

You can become spy in the real world,it is nothing special.

Oki, I'll go to spy agency tomorrow, thanks! Next time you see me, you won't but I'll see you cos I'll be a SPY! Ho-ho-ho I'll be a spy in santa clothes!

In the language of my people spy is how you write vomit.

:informative:

Swedish? I imagine it traces back to what in English became spew.

 

[Latelistener]

icecream shop

 

[hello friend]

You can become spy in the real world,it is nothing special.

Oki, I'll go to spy agency tomorrow, thanks! Next time you see me, you won't but I'll see you cos I'll be a SPY! Ho-ho-ho I'll be a spy in santa clothes!

In the language of my people spy is how you write vomit.

:informative:

Swedish? I imagine it traces back to what in English became spew.

Heavens no. I hail from a proper country, in the frigid lands of the north.

 

[Haba]

Read the last few pages, why do everyone assumes that Sawyer is going to leave Obsidian. Did I miss something?

Why do you assume he hasn't left already?

 

[Roguey]

Possibility from the avelleaks gate that mca said someone in high position is leaving obs

That was Matt MacLean who's left already.

 

[unfairlight]

Read the last few pages, why do everyone assumes that Sawyer is going to leave Obsidian. Did I miss something?

His game FLOPPED and he told me personally how much he hated socal because of "all the fucking spics and kikes"

 

[SymbolicFrank]

It's also a managerial fuck-up if you have irreplaceable employees in the first place.

Your company will be very mediocre, and that management itself considers themselves irreplaceable.

 

[Sentinel]

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.

well, bioware still exists too

 

[Infinitron]

http://www.ign.com/articles/2018/06...ng-pillars-of-eternity-games-a-ign-unfiltered

OBSIDIAN OPEN TO OTHER DEVELOPERS DOING PILLARS OF ETERNITY GAMES – IGN UNFILTERED

For Pillars of Eternity II: Deadfire director Josh Sawyer, one of the most valuable things a game company can hold onto isn’t just its employees or the hardware it develops, but the original worlds they create that can be used throughout the future to create different games. In this month’s IGN Unfiltered, Sawyer says that Obsidian is open to the idea of other developers using the Pillars of Eternity IP to create their own games set within the same universe.

“I as an individual designer, I try not to design outside the boundaries of what we're actually putting in the games because I want other teams and other designers [to use this] -- or heck, maybe someone would license this from us,” Sawyer says, citing a hypothetical Pillars of Eternity tactics-based game as an idea that Obsidian might not have the interest in or means to produce itself. Sawyer suggests that a different developer could possibly license the Pillars of Eternity IP and software to start their own project.

“That would be great for everybody. It expands that universe, it gives the fans more games to play in that setting, and it's ultimately more profitable for the company,” Sawyer says.

When designing Pillars of Eternity’s narrative, Sawyer says one of their main objectives was to make the adventure “feel epic but not too epic.” Obsidian placed an emphasis on the player character being a relatively normal person who catches glimpses of the supernatural forces that their character can’t yet understand. This starting point allowed the writers of Pillars of Eternity II: Deadfire to responsibly raise the stakes, letting you pursue a rogue god across the sea without it feeling unearned.

Sawyer suggests that any number of ideas, including a first-person Skyrim-style game, could be possible within the Pillars of Eternity world.

“There's all sorts of stuff we could do with the setting. I'm developing a crazy tabletop role-playing game, going all the way back to my roots, for Pillars of Eternity,” Sawyer says. “When I conceived it, I said this is a thing that we need to use as a company to build in the future.”

As for the immediate future of the franchise, Sawyer says that he does want to see Obsidian develop new types of experiences set in the Pillars of Eternity world, but that there are opportunities for more mainstream games as well.

“Personally, I want to work on something different because I’ve been working on Pillars for about six years now, which is kind of a while,” Sawyer says. “I have made a lot of party-based fantasy role-playing games. They’re a lot of fun to make, but I’m burned out for now on this. I have other game ideas that are actually even smaller in scope than something like Pillars or Deadfire.”

As design director for the entirety of Obsidian Entertainment, Sawyer says he’s going to spend the next year or so helping other designers at the company improve in their craft while focusing on Obsidian’s other projects.

For more behind-the-scenes info on the world of Pillars of Eternity, Obsidian’s work adapting tabletop design into Fallout: New Vegas, or their canceled Aliens RPG, make sure to check out this month’s full episode of IGN Unfiltered.

 

[unfairlight]

Yeah, I'm sure other developers are just lining up to get a stab at the hot, hot, hot Pillars of Eternity series.

 

[Sentinel]

"It should feel epic but not too epic"

It should, but not really. That's PoE in a nutshell.

 

[Cross]

Why would they think the Pillars setting would be lucrative or interesting for other developers to license when they can choose from a ton of tabletop settings that are way more unique and have more source material to draw from?

Or is this some desperate cry for help, after Deadfire's flop?

 

[fantadomat]

I propose that the Codex makes a RPG studio. It will be a game about a country ravaged by political inaction and fanatical ideology,filled with all kind of scummy infidels from other countries that try to infiltrate it and robe it. The main hero will be glorious young peasant with only one desire,to burn all the cancer that rots his country!

 

[Freddie]

An RPG game is much about escapism (from real life)

And what makes fantasy more escapist? IMO escapism is much more powerful when the game is realistic/familiar and you do/achieve shit in it that you wouldn't/couldn't IRL; more people have dreams to be a charismatic spy, a superhero, being famous etc than being a hero in a fantasy land. Which is why we only saw 3 great LotR movies and some shit Hobbit ones and a hundred superhero movies in the last twenty years. Just take a look at genre dominance in movies/TV and games, it shouldn't be hard to see that fantasy has way more presence in games than it has right to. Tho it might be hard to see cos people got used to it being this way But its fading rapidly cos games started being made by people with more diverse backgrounds than mostly fantasy nerds.

I covered that already, but for what comes to fantasy being over presented I agree but then again, that's been discussed in this thread too.

 

[Alienman]

I propose that the Codex makes a RPG studio. It will be a game about a country ravaged by political inaction and fanatical ideology,filled with all kind of scummy infidels from other countries that try to infiltrate it and robe it. The main hero will be glorious young peasant with only one desire,to burn all the cancer that rots his country!

And make it in RPG maker

 

[fantadomat]

I propose that the Codex makes a RPG studio. It will be a game about a country ravaged by political inaction and fanatical ideology,filled with all kind of scummy infidels from other countries that try to infiltrate it and robe it. The main hero will be glorious young peasant with only one desire,to burn all the cancer that rots his country!

And make it in RPG maker

Can't we just use the Black Geyser engine? Even that game use it...what was the name,piles of eternity or something similar.

 

[Sentinel]

Today I had a dream that the Cain & Boyarsky project was announced and it was called Fallout 101. I even saw gameplay in this dream of mine - game was third person and the character was running along some water pipes in an open field, and I remember thinking "man I hope it's turn based" and as a deathclaw was spotted I was woken up by someone ringing the doorbell.

 

[Russia is over. The end.]

Today I had a dream that the Cain & Boyarsky project was announced and it was called Fallout 101. I even saw gameplay in this dream of mine - game was third person and the character was running along some water pipes in an open field, and I remember thinking "man I hope it's turn based" and as a deathclaw was spotted I was woken up by someone ringing the doorbell.

Instead it's a game with a lot of "online experience like in dayZ". So yeah, it would've been better to never wake up.

 

[Infinitron]

http://www.ign.com/articles/2018/06...-constraints-of-crowdfunding-a-ign-unfiltered

PILLARS OF ETERNITY DIRECTOR WOULD RATHER HAVE THE CONSTRAINTS OF CROWDFUNDING – IGN UNFILTERED

For years, Obsidian Entertainment had long been one of the video game industry’s unluckiest studios. Between Sega canceling their role-playing game based on the Aliens franchise, Microsoft canceling the lofty “million-man raids” of Stormlands, or THQ folding shortly after acquiring the publishing rights for South Park: The Stick of Truth, publishers just weren’t looking like a good idea for the struggling team. Instead, Obsidian began to look towards the success of the Double Fine Adventure Kickstarter (which later became Broken Age), seeing it as a way for the team to make their pitch directly to fans of the studio’s work. In this month’s IGN Unfiltered, Pillars of Eternity director Josh Sawyer elaborates on how the change in the landscape of game publishing has impacted the studio, and how he prefers both the freedoms and limitations of crowdfunding.

“This style of game, the isometric role-playing game, whether you’re controlling a single character or a party of characters – the fans never left that style of game. Publishers left that style of game,” Sawyer says.

In looking at Kickstarter and speaking with the Double Fine team about their experiences, Obsidian was looking to escape from the system that allowed wealthy publishers to maximize their own profits at the expense of studios who had little leverage. Being beholden to fans was simply a much more appealing option, even if it did come with a large level of uncertainty for Obsidian’s leadership.

“At the time, we were in a desperate situation,” Sawyer says. “We're pitching everything to publishers, who know that we just had a huge layoff. They know they can get their way with us. They just have us over a barrel. There was this great energy at the company for doing a crowdfunding project.”

According to Sawyer, Obsidian did pitch the idea of an original isometric RPG that evoked the nostalgia of Obsidian’s and Interplay’s previous works to various publishers, but none wanted to take on the responsibility. Publishers were looking for large-scale investments that aimed to be the next big franchise rather than a modestly scaled and priced game.

By the time the original Pillars of Eternity Kickstarter launched, Sawyer says he felt like they had a 50/50 chance of earning their original $1.1 million goal in their allotted month, even with Obsidian’s track record for great role-playing games.

“I don’t think anyone can ever take their fans’ love for granted,” Sawyer says. “You have to continually reward their trust to continue to earn it in the future.”

Within a little under a day-and-a-half, Obsidian had raised the $1.1 million goal, and by the end of the month would raise that number to $3,986,929, becoming the most funded game Kickstarter for its time.

The biggest change in developing alongside backers instead of a publisher extends beyond the finances, Sawyer says. Instead of keeping a game under wraps for years at a time, keeping the publisher happy, and then working to coordinate a very singular PR campaign for the game shortly before release, crowdfunding allowed fans to directly comment on designs and mechanics that they liked or disliked.

“That as an experience is much healthier than designing things in secret because the publisher isn’t ready to talk about the game,” Sawyer says. “Then the game comes out and the players go, ‘Man, I don’t like any of this stuff.’ That’s not a fun way to make a game. That doesn’t really help anyone, it just helps the publisher focus a message for a mass market. I would rather have those constraints of the player base, which I said are in many ways more restrictive than trying to arc them through the publisher’s expectations and hope you land somewhere in an area players like.”

For more details on how the Pillars of Eternity Kickstarter came together, the future of the Pillars of Eternity franchise, and Obsidian’s canceled Aliens RPG, check out this month’s episode of IGN Unfiltered.

 

[Abu Antar]

I like isometric games as much as the next codexer, but the restraints of crowdfunding is not a plus in my book.

 

[Sentinel]

Hopefully they let Sawyer do his turn-based tactics RPG game. It's time to have something competing with nuXCOM.

 

[makchanka]

I propose that the Codex makes a RPG studio. It will be a game about a country ravaged by political inaction and fanatical ideology,filled with all kind of scummy infidels from other countries that try to infiltrate it and robe it. The main hero will be glorious young peasant with only one desire,to burn all the cancer that rots his country!

Someone's already making this, but it looks like you can only play on the antifa side. http://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/inde...-updated-feb-2017.106945/page-18#post-5660806

Hopefully they let Sawyer do his turn-based tactics RPG game. It's time to have something competing with nuXCOM.

If you haven't already played Xenonauts, it's basically just a UI/mechanical streamlining and graphical overhaul of the real X-Com, plus it's sprite-based IIRC. It's the only X-Com clone that comes close to the original in terms of emergent gameplay and atmosphere. There's also a new Xenonauts coming out, but it's in 3d with a free camera unfortunately. Still, it will probably be decent

 

[Fargus]

I propose that the Codex makes a RPG studio. It will be a game about a country ravaged by political inaction and fanatical ideology,filled with all kind of scummy infidels from other countries that try to infiltrate it and robe it. The main hero will be glorious young peasant with only one desire,to burn all the cancer that rots his country!

I would rather play RPG about Codex, with turn-based combat of course! With various posters as npcs you can romance and many bosses to defeat. Main character will be a newfag and in game currency will be brofists. It should be rogue-like too, where you can just shitpost or explore huge and boring dungeons (based on many different subforums) untill you die.

 

[fantadomat]

I propose that the Codex makes a RPG studio. It will be a game about a country ravaged by political inaction and fanatical ideology,filled with all kind of scummy infidels from other countries that try to infiltrate it and robe it. The main hero will be glorious young peasant with only one desire,to burn all the cancer that rots his country!

I would rather play RPG about Codex, with turn-based combat of course! With various posters as npcs you can romance and many bosses to defeat. Main character will be a newfag and in game currency will be brofists. It should be rogue-like too, where you can just shitpost or explore huge and boring dungeons (based on many different subforums) untill you die.

There is such a game already
https://store.steampowered.com/app/348270/Social_Justice_Warriors/

 

[Latelistener]

I would rather play RPG about Codex, with turn-based combat of course! With various posters as npcs you can romance and many bosses to defeat. Main character will be a newfag and in game currency will be brofists. It should be rogue-like too, where you can just shitpost or explore huge and boring dungeons (based on many different subforums) untill you die.

There should be 3 final bosses, the Codex Lords: Darth Infinitron, Dark Underlord and of course Makkab (a secret Codex Lord, who was fooling you the whole time, pretending that he's just an ordinary shitposter who was trying to help you).