Obsidian General Discussion Thread

[Tytus]

http://www.obsidian.net/jobs/open-positions/qa/704-qa-tester

Seems like Obsidian is looking for a QA tester....

For NWN2

In Santa Ana

I still did not played the expansion so maybe I should wait a little for the QA it? :ehue:

 

[Athelas]

I still did not played the expansion so maybe I should wait a little for the QA it? :ehue:

If you're referring to Mask of the Betrayer, it's actually pretty bug-free. (I believe even the OC is mostly fine since it's fully patched now.)

 

[tuluse]

http://www.obsidian.net/jobs/open-positions/qa/704-qa-tester

Seems like Obsidian is looking for a QA tester....

For NWN2

In Santa Ana

This is interesting, as I believe NWN2 is the only game that Obsidian gets royalties for.

 

[Xeon]

I think the last area in OC is bugged.

Spoiler

Part where the last boss fights you in a square area, and for some reason he just doesn't die or something. I ended up quitting since it had a pretty long cut scene before that and you fight a few groups of enemies before the boss or something IIRC

 

[Infinitron]

I think that's an error.

 

[Tytus]

When I played the OC I had so many bugs it was hard to play. There was this boss fight with Githyanki early in the game and the entire things froze. I could traverse the area but I couldn't attack any od the enemies. Also the cut scene didn't activate leaving me baffled what to do. I reloaded the save a couple of times, but the same thing happened over and over again. So I reverted to an older save and went through the game again. This time when I came to boss fight, cut scene activated, but when it ended for some mysterious reason game decided that all enemies were already defeated and I was denied the fight. I could only loot them, and move on. Please Obsidian, don't make go through shit like that again.

 

[Starwars]

Main bug problem I have nowadays with MotB (and this didn't happen to me when I first bought it so I wonder if it got introduced in a patch) is Okku gliding around the place when you talk to him after defeating his army. Kiiiiiinda defeats the dramatic tension during that part.

 

[Duraframe300]

It is an error. Obsidian is now in Irvine. For ages.

Thats the joke.

I thought that its most likely a mistake was obvious.

A few months ago they also suddenly put up a New Vegas job description. Wonder what is wrong with their system.

 

[veryalien]

A few months ago they also suddenly put up a New Vegas job description. Wonder what is wrong with their system.

Their programmers are very good at adding bugs to their systems.

 

[agris]

Probably just Job Wanted templates not getting enough proofing after edits.

 

[Xor]

You'd think it would be hard to miss the title of the project, at the very least.

 

[Cosmic Misogynerd]

Very late April Fools?

 

[Sensuki]

That looks like it's a PE Tester job (for the moment). I'd also say that we'd be around about the end of Production time now.

 

[Duraframe300]

That looks like it's a PE Tester job (for the moment). I'd also say that we'd be around about the end of Production time now.

Possibly, though that F:NV position just disappeared again. Might happen to this too.

Edit:Ahhhh, I see they corrected it. Nevermind. (If you didn't see it.yesterday it was expicitly refering to NWN2 and 3.5 edition D&D.)

 

[agris]

You'd think it would be hard to miss the title of the project, at the very least.

one would think..

 

[Hormalakh]

Even obsidian's hiring site has bugs

 

[Duraframe300]

Une interview francais avec Feargus

http://ragemag.fr/feargus-urquhart-obsidian-creer-studio-acte-de-foi-74564/

Infinitron On read that interview fits more into the general discussion. Can you move it?

(This post I mean)

 

[Arkeus]

Une interview francais avec Feargus

http://ragemag.fr/feargus-urquhart-obsidian-creer-studio-acte-de-foi-74564/

Infinitron On read that interview fits more into the general discussion. Can you move it?

(This post I mean)

*cough cough* Interview is masculine, hence 'un'.

 

[Duraframe300]

Yeah. I actually wanted to use entretien, but forgot the word. Then I looked interview up in google and saw une used.

Afterwards I realized that un was correct.

Eh, who cares.

 

[Ogg]

Une interview francais avec Feargus

http://ragemag.fr/feargus-urquhart-obsidian-creer-studio-acte-de-foi-74564/

Infinitron On read that interview fits more into the general discussion. Can you move it?

(This post I mean)

*cough cough* Interview is masculine, hence 'un'.

Well, actually, it's still undecided, which is not surprising since it's a foreign word. Both masculine and feminine are thus used. I tend to prefer "une interview" since it can be replaced by "une entrevue". But some prefer "un interview" for they have "un entretien" in mind.

Anyway, it's either "une interview française" or "un interview français".

As for a translation (yes, I was bored and needed to practice my English):

Where does your passion for video games come from?

Feargus Urquhart, by Joe Sanabria.

I was born in 1970. I discovered role playing ames at the age of 11 or 12. Amongst the RPG I played on consoles (Wizardry, Might and Magic), Ultima IV is still the game that captivated me most. there was this volition to offer the player an epic adventure with strong characters. Reading LotR strengthened the idea that a story had to be epic, that the hero's quest had to have an impact on the world. Just as when Frodo throw the ring in the volcano to save the Middle Earth. It's the same with an RPG that should make the player feel like they have an impact on the dramaturgy.

Now to be completely honest, I wasn't predisposed to work in the gaming industry at the time. It was a niche concept. At the end of my studies, I started a formation as an engineer. What was to come owes much to chance. I had friends who worked for Interplay. Their premises weren't that far from where I lived. I got a job as a part-time game tester whose job consisted in gauging quality of their productions. That's how I entered in this industry, through the back door. Up till then, I had just fiddled with some text-based adventure games on Commodore 64, I had attended some videogames conventions, but nothing that would look like a carreer plan. It's incredible it worked out like that.

How did you end up to creating Black Isle studio inside Interplay?
Interplay was still a small company, about 35 people, when I got hired. You got to know everybody quite quickly. I had many opportunities to discuss with the company's founder, Brian Fargo. I got the job of game producer at a time when producers had even more responsibilities than they have now. We were in charge of both management and creation. Besides project management, I had, for instance, to write the dialogues and the story board for cut scenes, even if I wasn't to direct them. That's how I learned everything. Brian understood that and he knew my passion for RPG. When the opportunity to become head of the D&D division showed off, I jumped on the occasion.I didn't have to claim: "Hey, I'm the best, this job is made for me." The game industry was still emerging at the beginning of the 90ies. Everything was going fast. Big companies like Interplay, Activision et Electronic needed more workforce. There was no training and no school for video games. Being devoted to your passion and being good at your job was the only requirement.


"Some say that Fallout isn't the work of Black Isle, I disagree."

When I took the head of the D&D division in 1996, its name wasn't decided. One of the first thing Brian asked of me was to find a good name. Black Isle, I always kept this name in one corner of my head. Brian answered something like: "Black Isle? That's perfect." For the record, it's a reference to my origins. Black Isle is a small Scottish peninsula, neighbouring my family estate somewhere, near Inverness.

Desolated lands in Fallout.

Amongst your most well-known productions, there's the post apocalyptic RPG Fallout. Its paternity has often been challenged.
There were some controversies. I know what Wikipedia taught me. (laugh) Technically, it's true that the first game that got the proper Black Isle mark was Fallout 2. It was the first time our logo appeared on a game jacket. The first Fallout was still in development when I was put in charge of the division. But there weren't many people working on it, maybe 10 people at most. With Black Isle, we went up to 25 people to finish the game. Some say that Fallout isn't the work of Black Isle, I disagree, because most of those who worked on Fallout weree from this new division.

How do you explain this appeal for a post apo RPG?
I always gravitated around this kind of universe, urban fantasy, cyberpunk. I considered though that even darker games had to be alleviated with some touch of light. Fallout games are filled with decisions that are hard for the player to make. But there's no right or wrong decision. Not to frustrate the player, that was my motto from the beginning. You always have to keep in mind that our first mission is to entertain. You've got to release the pressure some times, offer some rest. It can be through some quest lines, some landscapes, some encounters. When the player goes on an adventure, he'll be faced with difficulties and he'll have to make some choices. That's why it's crucial to put some reward mechanisms in an RPG. For instance, that moment when the player pass by the walls of a city where he can rest, sell or craft the resources he's collected. The job for a developer is to vary the environment and the atmosphere, to make sure the gameplay gimmicks aren't too redundant. Baldur's Gate focused on character development. Planescape: Torment built nearly everything on story. Icewind Dale boasted a tactical dimension that the other two did not have. They complete each other. Not many came to me complaining about having to deal with Baldur's Gate clones.


Baldur’s Gate has become a legend in terms of RPG. How can you explain it from today's perspective?

Baldur’s Gate.

First I believe that it was produced at the right moment. At the time, there were not so many RPG. As the heir of the legendary D&D, it brought back some nostalgia. Besides its fantasy setting and the opportunity to take part in an epic story, Baldur's Gate allowed the player to do nearly whatever they wanted. There was a designated path to the end, but the game offered enough secondary content to make the player feel like he was part of something bigger and pore important. Choosing your hero, choosing your class (fighter, mage...), the options were numerous and varied. Now, I'm not sure we would still remember it if it wasn't for its sequel. And Baldur’s Gate : Dark Alliance went even further in the refinment of this concept. This trend never went down. If TES:Skyrim is so successful now, it's because it lets the player channel their story how they want.

How did you go through the difficulties of your publisher Interplay at the turn of the millennium?
How can I sum it up... You've got to put yourself in Interplay's shoes. This company that played in the big league got thrown out of the top ten list. It wasn't easy to deal with. Some choices were made. They focused on sports games, but the return on investment wasn't great. Like many companies at the time, they foresaw that the near future would not be on PC, but on consoles. And most of our games were PC exclusives. De facto, Black Isle division had no future in Interplay. We got very low support. D&D licence wasn't cheap and Interplay choosed to sell it. We had been sorking on Baldur's Gate 3 for a year and a half, and then suddenly nothing. It was a major disappointment. We did what we could. We tried to finish Icewind Dale 2 as quickly as we could. But Interplay made a terrible deal. In retrospect, I think that our time was just done at Interplay. That's why I decided to leave.

It didn't take you long to saddle up and found Obsidian studio in 2003.
Founding a studio is never easy. You've got to believe in it. If we had to found Obsidian nowadays, I would say that it would be very very very difficult. Publishers produce less games and margins are tighter. At the time, building a 30 people team was sufficient for a triple A game like Kotot II. I'd say that we also were lucky too. Siw months after I left, Interplay closed its Black Isle division. THe question whether or not Obsidian could step on their toes and syphon their workforce didn't have any sense any longer. For those people had no job any more. Chris Avellone, Chris Jones, Chris Parker, Darren Monahan, my former co-workers from Black Isle, joined me in this adventure some time after my leaving the division. But to be fair, if I had to undertake something today, I wouldn't focus on console games. I'd rather work on tablet games, some free-to-play, a kickstater, something safer.

Fallout : New Vegas.

As far as the name of the studio is concerned, we wrote lots of names on a piece of paper. Things like « Three Clowns Software », « Search and Destroy », « Breach and Run ». Most of them weren't serious. We narrowed it to a short list that we showed to our spouses. Unanimously, Obsidian was the name they found was the least stupid. We didn't draw the connexion immediately, but we realised that obsidian was this dark stone, just like ... Black Isle. It wasn't hard to decide what we wanted to produce, for we had a shared experience in game making. We always dreamt of developing a game in Star Wars universe. The opportunity came out when Simon Jeffery from LucasArts told us that Bioware studio wasn't working on Kotor's sequel. And we had worked hand in hand with them on several occasions. Who better than a studio they already knew their technology could take the job?


At first, Obsidian specialised in creating sequel for successful series: Kotor II or NWN 2. In 2010, you produced a new licence, Alpha Protocol, a very peculiar RPG that hold a special place for you.
I don't know if such an opportunity will show up any more, but it was the first time a video game publisher, in this case Sega, seemed interested in a spy-themed RPG. Told like taht, it may not seem complicated, but developing this game was a tall order. First and foremost, it owes much to Chris Avellone's writing. When Chris got involved with the project, he brought in some wonderful ideas. In particular, the fact that in game choices would have delayed consequences that the player wouldn't suspect at first. He spent days, weeks, months thinking about it all. Too many RPG fail in that matter: "Do you want to help the old lady cross the street or do you want to shoot her?" If you shoot her, the game will acknowledge your being a psychopath. If you help her, it'll mean you're a hero. Alpha Protocol doesn't make you play the role of psychopath, nor of a hero. There are positive and negative ramifications in every one of your actions. For Chris, the greatest gameplay idea behind was: "There's no right or wrong choice. Whatever happens, the player should always be rewarded." The player isn't rewarded for his success or his failures, but for the decisions he takes.


"Many people asked for an Alpha Protocol 2. That's something I can't guarantee."

After all, that shakes the whole concept of game design. Choice isn't a limitation any more, it's a liberation. The player won't take the decision he should tale, but the decisions he want to. This brings us back to the first meaning of RPG. A game in which the player plays a role, litterally. That's why you should reward the player for daring to make choice. More than simply reward, you've got to support him in all of his choices. You've got to free yourselves of the constraint of good and bad, reputation, morality. Being a child of the 80ies, I think I've been heavily influenced by Blade Runner. The scene where Harrison Ford and the replicant are on the roof under a heavy rain is extremely interesting. Should Deckard kill Roy Batty? Is destroying replicants morally right or wrong? The movie ask the question but doesn't draw a definitive answer.

Fallout : New Vegas, that came out the same year, took the same direction.
New Vegas tells the story of people who try to survive in a world that collapsed and that's still collapsing. Resources are scarce, everyone has to struggle for themselves. The question is this one: how would people react if they were thrown into such a chaotic environment? What could be more exciting for a game designer to try to imagine a world deprived of electricity and transport? There is a great temptation to withdraw within oneself. But we shouldn't judge the player nevertheless, whatever his choice and the position he decides to defend.

South Park : La Bâton de la Vérité.

In march 2014, South Park: tSoT came out. It was your first foray in the humorous RPG genre.
Trey Parker and Matt Stone, South Park creators, had only one demand at the end of our first discussion: The Stick of Truth had to be in the exact same vein as the TV series. It was quite a challenge and we had to think a lot about how to do justice to the big pile of nonsense you can find in the show. We had a call everyday with Matt. It's their investment as authors that made the difference in this project. In the same fashion that you don't approach a Star Wars game as if it was a Fallout game, you have to respect the intrinsically funny, mischievous, irreverent raw material of South Park. The game costs 60 dollars. The fact that the player ends up saying: "Yes, that's an authentic South Park" was a responsibility we couldn't depart from.


You talked about Kickstarter. Pillars of Eternity, expected for the end of the year, is Obsidian first attempt in terms of crowdfunding. Does a studio as well rooted as yours also need to resort to alternative financing?


Pillars of Eternity.

As a game developer, it's getting more difficult to do anything by yourself, for yourself. Publishers give you much money to create, but the creation doesn't belong to you. Many people asked for an Alpha Protocol 2. That's something I can't guarantee, because the intellectual property doesn't belong to us. That's paradoxical: Sega will probably never publish Alpha Protocol , but unless we give them a load of cash, they won't sell it to us. We're sometimes stuck in this kind of strange situation. We don't own Alpha Protocol and we don't own a lot of the licences on which we got to work. That's why, as creators, we wish to now exercise our right to fatherhood. Don't see this as a passing fancy. It's just a way to say: "that game is ours, only ours." A kickstarter represents an unprecedented opportunity, not only to make the game we want and the gamers want, but also because it leaves us as sole masters on board. We can develop its mythology as we want, novellas, sequels, expensions...


Will kickstarter change your way of thinking and developing RPG?
No. Because it still comes down to us. We don't always resort to the same tricks, but our RPG philosophy is still the same. That's also true for Pillars of Eternity. It's not a 40 millions budget, but our ideals and our standards are intact. We'll stay true to our creed: a role playing game in which I can freely play the character I want be.​

 

[Duraframe300]

See I was wrong twice. Damnit, have to practice my fench again.

Thanks for the translation!

 

[RK47]

As far as the name of the studio is concerned, we wrote lots of names on a piece of paper. Things like « Three Clowns Software », « Search and Destroy », « Breach and Run ». Most of them weren't serious. We narrowed it to a short list that we showed to our spouses. Unanimously, Obsidian was the name they found was the least stupid. We didn't draw the connexion immediately, but we realised that obsidian was this dark stone, just like ... Black Isle.

Is this guy for real? I'm glad they didn't went for any of those names. Those were horrible names. Like FPS clans or some shit.

 

[Duraframe300]

As far as the name of the studio is concerned, we wrote lots of names on a piece of paper. Things like « Three Clowns Software », « Search and Destroy », « Breach and Run ». Most of them weren't serious. We narrowed it to a short list that we showed to our spouses. Unanimously, Obsidian was the name they found was the least stupid. We didn't draw the connexion immediately, but we realised that obsidian was this dark stone, just like ... Black Isle.

Is this guy for real? I'm glad they didn't went for any of those names. Those were horrible names. Like FPS clans or some shit.

I think the sentence that follows answers that question.

 

[RK47]

As far as the name of the studio is concerned, we wrote lots of names on a piece of paper. Things like « Three Clowns Software », « Search and Destroy », « Breach and Run ». Most of them weren't serious. We narrowed it to a short list that we showed to our spouses. Unanimously, Obsidian was the name they found was the least stupid. We didn't draw the connexion immediately, but we realised that obsidian was this dark stone, just like ... Black Isle.

Is this guy for real? I'm glad they didn't went for any of those names. Those were horrible names. Like FPS clans or some shit.

I think the sentence that follows answers that question.

I know, it's just a weird train of thought.

 

[dunno lah]

Who'd be the three clowns I wonder...