Obsidian General Discussion Thread

[LESS T_T]

More hires for the project with multiplayer elements (or straight-up multiplayer game):

KyungKun Ko, Senior Software Engineer, has almost 20 years of experience in network programming: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kyungkun-ko-813b324a/

Senior Software Engineer

Company Name Obsidian Entertainment
Dates Employed Sep 2019 – Present
Employment Duration 3 mos
Location Irvin, CA

Network and online system

Matthew Nickerson, QA Lead, only worked on multiplayer games as system designer and QA: https://www.linkedin.com/in/matthew-nickerson-66489a71/

Probably this is the project Dan Maas (Production Director, formerly producer at Blizzard on Overwatch and others) is working on.

Also Mark DeGeorge, Programming Director worked on Armored Warfare and The Outer Worlds, seemingly moved on to some unannounced project: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mark-degeorge-54121a86/

 

[Riddler]

More hires for the project with multiplayer elements (or straight-up multiplayer game):

KyungKun Ko, Senior Software Engineer, has almost 20 years of experience in network programming: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kyungkun-ko-813b324a/

Senior Software Engineer

Company Name Obsidian Entertainment
Dates Employed Sep 2019 – Present
Employment Duration 3 mos
Location Irvin, CA

Network and online system

Matthew Nickerson, QA Lead, only worked on multiplayer games as system designer and QA: https://www.linkedin.com/in/matthew-nickerson-66489a71/

Probably this is the project Dan Maas (Production Director, formerly producer at Blizzard on Overwatch and others) is working on.

Also Mark DeGeorge, Programming Director worked on Armored Warfare and The Outer Worlds, seemingly moved on to some unannounced project: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mark-degeorge-54121a86/

This is either a sign of a pure decline multiplayer mtx game as a service pivot or trying to copy the Co-Op of D:OS2.

 

[Infinitron]

Podcast: http://interactive.libsyn.com/the-outer-worlds-co-game-director-leonard-boyarsky

Leonard Boyarsky joins host Ted Price to talk about his career, creating Fallout, his approach to design and storytelling, lessons learned while working on Diablo III, and his new game, The Outer Worlds.

Boyarsky is the co-game director at Obsidian Entertainment. He is best known for his work on Fallout and Diablo III.

 

[Diggfinger]

New podcast with Leonard:

AIAS GAME MAKER'S NOTEBOOK:
The Outer Worlds Co-Game Director, Leonard Boyarsky
- Not a big gamer growing up
- preferred comics and D&D: would build campaigns around narrative rather than combat
- Highlights how skilled Jason Anderson is, with an exceptional flair both for technical issues and art
- Anderson facilitated communication between Leon/Tim at the very beginning ("I dont know how I would have been able to communicate with Tim if Jason hadn't been there")
- Stumbled into writing on Fallout because he wasn't happy with work being done:"Luckily I was able to regurgitate my favorite writers in a pretty convincing fashion"
- Inspirations (dark humor): Coen brothers (darker movies), Brazil, City of Lost Children, early Kurt Vonnegut novels, Wes Anderson (e.g. Grand Budapest Hotel),
- Arcanum's mantra was "We have to let the player do that!", e.g. allowing dwarfs/elves to use magic/tech was a nightmare to program, but they never second-guessed it
- Learning from Troika: "I never want to run a business again"..."do what you're passionate about!"
- Arcanum: too much focus on little things/reactivity that 1% of players might find..."did we cut corners on things 90% of players saw?"
- Making games is about choices
- Leon/Jason dont remember much from "day-to-day Troika"...was psychologically overwhelming
- Leon sold his house after Troika closed and lived off that for a year (before joining Blizzard in 2006)
- Blizzard: learned alot of iteration and polish, but disappointed with ideas/content cut from Diablo III and the time it took to make it (6 years). Leon started 1 month after production started
- Doesn't want to be in charge of a 100 million dollar project..."I Like small and scrappy stuff"
- Outer Worlds: full pre-production (i.e team expanding beyond Tim/Leon) happened after three months when Private Division greenlit the project. Lead designer Charlie Staples and Art Director Daniel Albert (Troika Intern) joined early on
- Pitch consisted of a PowerPoint with some art/ideas
- Fun-fact: Leon didnt know what 'steam-punk' was when they made Fallout...was embarrassed when people asked him about it
- Outer Worlds: had to research deeper to define the world and sociological effects of the corporations. Tim came up with Spacer's Choice...Leon came up with the prison thing ('taste of freedom')
- TOW inspirations: True Grit (book and Coen film), Firefly
- 3 writers were new to Obsidian so Leon could 'corrupt' them. Did vertical slice (rose-ways?), Leon write main character to give them a feel to go by
- Every main character should have 'multiple facets' (i.e. bad-asshole guy noble, green-loving leader vindictive etc.)
- TOWs' development focus was creating the main story-line from start to finish, and then expand it. Gave better perspective on what to improve/iterate on

 

[Wunderbar]

New podcast with Leonard:

- Highlights how skilled Jason Anderson is, with an exceptional flair both for technical issues and art
- Anderson facilitated communication between Leon/Tim at the very beginning ("I dont know how I would have been able to communicate with Tim if Jason hadn't been there")

he's already trying to explain why TOW is not good - it's because Jason Anderons was absent!

 

[Roguey]

True Grit (book and Coen film)

I don't see this at all.

 

[Junmarko]

True Grit (book and Coen film)

I don't see this at all.

That's because someone else drew a purple mustache on it.

 

[Riddler]

True Grit (book and Coen film)

I don't see this at all.

Maybe it's only the overwhelming autism of Sawyer that can begin to wrangle this Writing team into a unified direction?

 

[Prime Junta]

Maybe it's only the overwhelming autism of Sawyer that can begin to wrangle this Writing team into a decent direction?

If that worked Deadfire would have a coherent and engaging story and well-grounded, relatable companions.

So, uh, no, I don't think so.

 

[Riddler]

Maybe it's only the overwhelming autism of Sawyer that can begin to wrangle this Writing team into a decent direction?

If that worked Deadfire would have a coherent and engaging story and well-grounded, relatable companions.

So, uh, no, I don't think so.

The writing and worldbuilding in Deadfire was a lot better than ToW.

 

[Prime Junta]

The writing and worldbuilding in Deadfire was a lot better than ToW.

Not a high bar to clear.

 

[Riddler]

The writing and worldbuilding in Deadfire was a lot better than ToW.

Not a high bar to clear.

Still, he cleared it.

 

[Prime Junta]

The writing and worldbuilding in Deadfire was a lot better than ToW.

Not a high bar to clear.

Still, he cleared it.

The setting benefited a lot from his history autism. Many of the sidequests and the faction shit was very well grounded in it. But the rot goes pretty deep in the rest of it. I do not get the impression that he made much effort to coach the writers beyond serving as a lore repository.

Consider the banging. In the Figstarter and during development he said that there will be companion interactions and dynamics and romance only if it makes sense. Whoopty doo, you have herosexual companions wanting to jump on your D (or in your V, as the case may be) almost the minute you see them. He clearly had other priorities than stamping down on that kind of degeneracy.

 

[Riddler]

I suppose that could be true. The way to get quality from the team might be to just do their work for them.

 

[Heroic Liberator]

The writing and worldbuilding in Deadfire was a lot better than ToW.

Not a high bar to clear.

Still, he cleared it.

The setting benefited a lot from his history autism. Many of the sidequests and the faction shit was very well grounded in it. But the rot goes pretty deep in the rest of it. I do not get the impression that he made much effort to coach the writers beyond serving as a lore repository.

It's quite apparent in the case of the factions as well, particularly the Principi and the Huana. While bits and pieces of lore are thrown here and there, a stronger accent should've been put on the socio-cultural background of each.

Admittedly, they focused on the caste system of the Huana in some of their side content (the Roparu district in particular), but it wasn't a theme of the faction and its questline. Likewise, for the old guard of the Principi, their background as disowned aristocrats was barely explored and mostly in a between-the-lines manner through the direct and indirect characterization of a few characters (the lad that ambushes you in the beginning, the faction leader and the person behind the black market within the Huana capital).

As a minor complaint, still annoyed that there was no reactivity for being a Darcozzi paladin when dealing with the undead captain.

 

[Junmarko]

Steve Jackson not liking the execution scene in Fallout's intro. What a fucking humorless pansey.

 

[Nano]

- 3 writers were new to Obsidian so Leon could 'corrupt' them. Did vertical slice (rose-ways?), Leon write main character to give them a feel to go by

Seems that the 'mediocrity' plague that's currently affecting Obsidian-at-large overpowered him. Either that or Leon himself got infected.

 

[Riddler]

Too bad the interview was such a dick sucking exercise. The interviewer didn't challenge Leo once or even ask him what he thought went wrong or well with his various projects.

I mean, how did Leonard think the development of ToW went? What did they do well and what does he see as areas for improvement? I have no idea because the interviewer just preempted that by saying that everything was great, which lead to Leonard saying som variation of "I'm happy you feel that way". You can't very well cut off someone giving you praise and saying "No, you are wrong. That was actually sub-par and something I think we need to improve".

Perhaps Leonard thought everything was great but we don't know that either because he was not asked for his opinion (in a non-leading way)..

 

[Kyl Von Kull]

Too bad the interview was such a dick sucking exercise. The interviewer didn't challenge Leo once or even ask him what he though went wrong or well with his various projects.

I mean, how did Leonard think the development of ToW went? What did they do well and what does he see as areas for improvement? I have no idea because the interviewer just preempted that by saying that everything was great, which lead to Leonard saying som variation of "I'm happy you feel that way". You can't very well cut off someone giving you praise and saying "No, you are wrong. That was actually sub-par and something I think we need to improve".

Perhaps Leonard thought everything was great but we don't know that either because he was not asked for his opinion (in a non-leading way)..

Watch the Gamasutra interview with Tim and Leonard.

 

[IHaveHugeNick]

you have herosexual companions wanting to jump on your D almost the minute you see them.

Pretty sure that was a bug with reputation gains.

 

[Heroic Liberator]

you have herosexual companions wanting to jump on your D almost the minute you see them.

Pretty sure that was a bug with reputation gains.

A Freudian slip in game development.

 

[Nano]

Consider the banging. In the Figstarter and during development he said that there will be companion interactions and dynamics and romance only if it makes sense. Whoopty doo, you have herosexual companions wanting to jump on your D (or in your V, as the case may be) almost the minute you see them. He clearly had other priorities than stamping down on that kind of degeneracy.

People are horny. Would be better if more video games stopped pretending they aren't.

 

[Heroic Liberator]

Consider the banging. In the Figstarter and during development he said that there will be companion interactions and dynamics and romance only if it makes sense. Whoopty doo, you have herosexual companions wanting to jump on your D (or in your V, as the case may be) almost the minute you see them. He clearly had other priorities than stamping down on that kind of degeneracy.

People are horny. Would be better if more video games stopped pretending they aren't.

People can satisfy these urges without the game having to cater to them.

 

[Nano]

People can satisfy these urges without the game having to cater to them.

I was talking about the characters, not players.

 

[Heroic Liberator]

People can satisfy these urges without the game having to cater to them.

I was talking about the characters, not players.

Still applies. People can restrain themselves, so to portray everyone as a horny fag driven by instinct alone is just as immersion breaking.