Obsidian General Discussion Thread

[Butter]

24. Missouri - Josh Sawyer Non-Violent Historical RPG

How long has this been in development now? I've been hearing about this game for >4 years.

I think it's something he's been chawing on for a long time, but it didn't start until 2019.

 

[Quillon]

24. Missouri - Josh Sawyer Non-Violent Historical RPG

How long has this been in development now? I've been hearing about this game for >4 years.

I think it's something he's been chawing on for a long time, but it didn't start until 2019.

this is not his dream - darklands-like historical game you've been hearing for 4+ years since he said it wasn't and since he said this is non-violent and made with a tiny team I'm expecting something experimental, heavily inspired by discommiesium.

 

[Flying Dutchman]

He was the Studio Audio Director and Composer. They have 2 new Audio Directors at Obsidian though, so they should be fine. His departure was always a matter of time since has been talked down of leaving multiple times (afaik).

I'd probably quit too if there was two other audio directors, I don't know how much weight the 'studio' audio director has.

I don't have enough of an ear for music to know if Bell is any good or not, so I don't know if this is a good thing or a bad thing. I hope he is going on to good things, regardless.

 

[Ging_Sama]

He was the Studio Audio Director and Composer. They have 2 new Audio Directors at Obsidian though, so they should be fine. His departure was always a matter of time since has been talked down of leaving multiple times (afaik).

I'd probably quit too if there was two other audio directors, I don't know how much weight the 'studio' audio director has.

I don't have enough of an ear for music to know if Bell is any good or not, so I don't know if this is a good thing or a bad thing. I hope he is going on to good things, regardless.

Do you have info on the state of Avowed ? Who is the design lead ? Patel was the sole director on the project ?

 

[Flou]

I'd probably quit too if there was two other audio directors, I don't know how much weight the 'studio' audio director has.

I don't have enough of an ear for music to know if Bell is any good or not, so I don't know if this is a good thing or a bad thing. I hope he is going on to good things, regardless.

I think the 2nd one (Gene Rozenberg) was hired because they knew Bell is leaving, since he was just quite recently hired. They hired one Audio Director to help Bell out initially (sometime last summer). They do after all have multiple projects and a huge bunch of audio guys. There was no way Bell was going to be able to micromanage all of that on his own. If I remember correctly he was still leading the whole damn thing though and the audio directors worked "for him" rather than just doing what they damn please.

 

[Ol' Willy]

(Gene Rozenberg)

This name requires triple brackets

 

[Flying Dutchman]

I think the 2nd one (Gene Rozenberg) was hired because they knew Bell is leaving, since he was just quite recently hired. They hired one Audio Director to help Bell out initially (sometime last summer). They do after all have multiple projects and a huge bunch of audio guys. There was no way Bell was going to be able to micromanage all of that on his own. If I remember correctly he was still leading the whole damn thing though and the audio directors worked "for him" rather than just doing what they damn please.

I might be careful with the word "micromanage" and just use "manage." As soon as you say micromanage, that's hardly a good thing (just wanted to give respect to Bell... unless he is a micromanager).

If he was micromanaging, then good riddance and he either doesn't trust his staff, hired poorly, or is a control freak.

It would make sense to hire a replacement if they knew he was leaving.

I don't know how much say the Art Director and Design Director have over individual projects, though, which is why I put 'studio' in quotes.

In some companies, it's an advisory/guiding/but-still-do-what-you-want role, in other companies it's the voice of authority.

Do you have info on the state of Avowed ? Who is the design lead ? Patel was the sole director on the project ?

The Phys Ed Discord for Game Devs does not seem to have thoughts on Patel after a search, and I haven't asked. There was some mention of Parker being on "extended leave" and possibly pouting somewhere after taking his toys with him.

They do seem to be wrong about some things, though, so citation needed. For example, people seemed to insist Tim Cain was retiring, but there's no evidence of that.

Pro Tip: Do searches for Game Dev, Discord, and then quietly add yourself to all Discord group invites (they don't usually screen these) and track who's in what company. The amount of hot goss is GREAT.

Edit: It's possible Patel isn't interested in fitness or health or being swole

 

[Roguey]

They do seem to be wrong about some things, though, so citation needed. For example, people seemed to insist Tim Cain was retiring, but there's no evidence of that.

Tim currently lives in Washington with his husband, so he either quietly left Obsidian or they have him remotely working from over a thousand miles away, which would be a really unusual situation.

 

[Infinitron]

https://schedule.gdconf.com/session/breaking-design-bottlenecks-with-dialogue-stubbing/880573

Breaking Design Bottlenecks with Dialogue Stubbing
Carrie Patel (Senior Narrative Designer & Writer, Obsidian Entertainment)

Authoring polished dialogue is a time-consuming process that may require weeks of work from writers. An efficient dialogue stubbing workflow can help the design team get content to a progressible state early, facilitate the eventual writing pass, and signal the size and complexity of a conversation.

However, while a good dialogue stub can streamline design and writing, a weak stub can hamstring these processes. This talk will explain what a dialogue stub is, including the information that does (and does not) belong in it. It will cover best practices for stubbing as well as the pitfalls that arise from uninformative or overly detailed stubs.

By the end, attendees will understand how to get the most from dialogue stubbing workflows on their own teams.

Takeaway
Attendees will understand how a good stubbing workflow can facilitate the process of authoring dialogue and will learn how to implement this process on their own teams.

Intended Audience
This talk is primarily intended for writers and designers who work on dialogue-heavy games and for producers who want to understand how to schedule teams with narrative elements more efficiently. The information in this talk is non-technical and will be of use to novices as well as experienced developers.

 

[Alienman]

Oh god... the start of the clip. He has really gone full cali. Disgusting.

 

[Butter]

I got probably 5 minutes in. They spent more time talking about their pronouns than about RPGs.

 

[Iskramor]

I unironically like a lot of the Pillars music, even pre-WM. I don't know what the hell happened with Deadfire though.

Feargus the fat corporate pig happened.

 

[Iskramor]

I got probably 5 minutes in. They spent more time talking about their pronouns than about RPGs.

Irony is that sawyer too stupid to realise that he jkust said that non whites would be less capable of creating rpg game lol

 

[Flying Dutchman]

Feargus the fat corporate pig happened.

I thought Slam Dunk Ferg was only responsible for enforcing the voice acting part.

And ship combat?

 

[0sacred]

"be white and a guy."

- Josh Sawyer on how to get into the gaming industry

 

[Butter]

"be white and a guy."

- Josh Sawyer on how to get into the gaming industry

Translation: be competent and have a work ethic.

 

[0sacred]

"be white and a guy."

- Josh Sawyer on how to get into the gaming industry

Translation: be competent and have a work ethic.

he was being apologetic, not edgy. You almost can't hear him over all the soy

 

[rusty_shackleford]

"be white and a guy."

- Josh Sawyer on how to get into the gaming industry

how to get your resume thrown in the trashbin by the HR landwhales*

 

[Alienman]

I think it's time he gives up his job and give room to POCs. I'm sure he can use his "luck" elsewhere and get by.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

I think it's time he gives up his job and give room to POCs. I'm sure he can use his "luck" elsewhere and get by.

someone send him this pls

 

[Roguey]

I imagine he knows and would argue that doing so would be ineffective because Obsidian middle management is only interested in promoting the people they like regardless of ability.

 

[Iskramor]

Feargus the fat corporate pig happened.

I thought Slam Dunk Ferg was only responsible for enforcing the voice acting part.

And ship combat?

Mismanagment is his fault and parkers.Why would bell recycle 80% from poe 1 into poe 2.

 

[Desiderius]

I imagine he knows and would argue that doing so would be ineffective because Obsidian middle management is only interested in promoting the people they like regardless of ability.

But why take out your own petty conflicts onto an entire civilization?

So excruciatingly cringe. And yes effeminate in it's solipsism.

 

[Infinitron]

 

[Major_Blackhart]

Can't see twitter, and I'm assuming that's a good thing.