Game News Obsidian teasing game reveal at The Game Awards

[Kem0sabe]

I hope it's an action adventure third person game instead of another slow and boring piece of shit like PoE.

But being a third person game with consoles as their primary market also means that they cant half ass it. Production values need to be very high, it needs to be free of major issues at launch, it needs to play extremely smooth... Else it will sell poorly and create a poor launchpad for their future exclusive efforts on the Xbox.

 

[SlumLord]

Obsidian's Alpha Protocol fit all those criteria - great game. It was also a bug-ridden, incomplete, mess.

The second part of your sentence invalidates the first. You can't have a 'great game' that's also fundamentally flawed in its execution, because the latter turns the entire experience into frustration.

A game is supposed to be enjoyable. No matter how much the storyfags disagree (and I count myself among them!), a game should first and foremost entertain with its mechanics and execution. You can bolt the best goddamn narrative in the world on top, but if the fundamental execution of the program is flawed in some way (not to mention, in many ways, as was the case with AP), then not only does that kill the player's immersion, it also makes the fucking product unplayable - which is the entire goddamn point of a game!

Great narrative, interesting plotlines, and authentic characters are no excuse for shoddy gameplay and terrible programming practices.

AP had a cool premise and well-written characters, but as a game it sucked hairy donkey balls.

 

[Junmarko]

The second part of your sentence invalidates the first. You can't have a 'great game' that's also fundamentally flawed in its execution, because the latter turns the entire experience into frustration.

Troika.

 

[Wunderbar]

The second part of your sentence invalidates the first. You can't have a 'great game' that's also fundamentally flawed in its execution, because the latter turns the entire experience into frustration.

what are you even doing here.

 

[Sentinel]

This project will most likely be very interesting from an art perspective since Leonard seems to be doing a fair bit of it and he's an amazing artist, but I don't have hopes for anything else. Writing is bound to be unmitigated trash and Obsidian have no competent score composer.

 

[Trans-Financial-Man]

Obsidian's Alpha Protocol fit all those criteria - great game. It was also a bug-ridden, incomplete, mess.

The second part of your sentence invalidates the first. You can't have a 'great game' that's also fundamentally flawed in its execution, because the latter turns the entire experience into frustration.

A game is supposed to be enjoyable. No matter how much the storyfags disagree (and I count myself among them!), a game should first and foremost entertain with its mechanics and execution. You can bolt the best goddamn narrative in the world on top, but if the fundamental execution of the program is flawed in some way (not to mention, in many ways, as was the case with AP), then not only does that kill the player's immersion, it also makes the fucking product unplayable - which is the entire goddamn point of a game!

Great narrative, interesting plotlines, and authentic characters are no excuse for shoddy gameplay and terrible programming practices.

AP had a cool premise and well-written characters, but as a game it sucked hairy donkey balls.

Fallout, Baldur's Gate, Planescape:Torment, Temple of Elemental Evil and pretty much every RPG that came out over the 1995-2010 period were buggy as shit, often reviewed like shit, and were appreciated like shit.

 

[FreeKaner]

This project will most likely be very interesting from an art perspective since Leonard seems to be doing a fair bit of it and he's an amazing artist, but I don't have hopes for anything else. Writing is bound to be unmitigated trash and Obsidian have no competent score composer.

Ah fuck. Hopefully it's not the mister generic I forgot what even his name was composing for this and take-two instead provides that.

 

[Molina]

This project will most likely be very interesting from an art perspective since Leonard seems to be doing a fair bit of it and he's an amazing artist, but I don't have hopes for anything else. Writing is bound to be unmitigated trash and Obsidian have no competent score composer.

I dunno. In the triangle speech, Cain emphazised about "Game are not movies" and "allowing the player to create any characters".
And it's what I look for when I play a RPG. If I want great litterature, i read books. The writting has to be good enough, but that's all. And Obisdian is good enough in this case.
What I miss the most about RPG writting is silly answers. Be able to call Navaro base,
to be able to laugh at the last Boss, and so on.
And I think Cain is aware that humour is an important part of the writting process. I hope so...

 

[Wunderbar]

I hope there is a mandatory "say something insulting to piss off npc and initiate combat" option in every dialogue. I love it.

Spoiler

 

[SlumLord]

Junmarko
Judging from a pure gameplay perspective, Troika's games are garbage. Arcanum and ToEE are more interesting as build simulators than anything else. Huge chunks of content are gated behind C&C mechanics. Bugs abound, and sully the entire experience. The original premise of their one unique IP isn't even that interesting (hurr durr magic vs. tech), and had better execution elsewhere. I played them as a kid and had fun, but let's not kid ourselves - if they came out today you'd call them janky Russian shovelware.

Wunderbar
What, can't have anyone disagreeing with the status quo? I swear, some of you knuckleheads are ripe material for a cult.

Trans-Financial-Man
You can appreciate and enjoy a product despite its flaws. My original point was that, from a design and execution standpoint, many games are utter garbage. Also, you can't lump something like BG1/2 and PS:T alongside Alpha Protocol - the latter was entire orders of magnitude more buggy and unstable. Not to mention how much harder and more demanding a 3D game loop is from a 2D one, since every additional plane of motion adds a Pandora's box of technical issues.

 

[Wunderbar]

Huge chunks of content are gated behind C&C mechanics.

k

 

[Forest Dweller]

The second part of your sentence invalidates the first. You can't have a 'great game' that's also fundamentally flawed in its execution, because the latter turns the entire experience into frustration.

Troika.

Case in point.

 

[SlumLord]

So many mad cucks in this thread, I love it!

You fags would probably queue in line to suck off Cain and Feargus, and you'd pay them for the privilege.

 

[Sentinel]

This project will most likely be very interesting from an art perspective since Leonard seems to be doing a fair bit of it and he's an amazing artist, but I don't have hopes for anything else. Writing is bound to be unmitigated trash and Obsidian have no competent score composer.

I dunno. In the triangle speech, Cain emphazised about "Game are not movies" and "allowing the player to create any characters".
And it's what I look for when I play a RPG. If I want great litterature, i read books. The writting has to be good enough, but that's all. And Obisdian is good enough in this case.
What I miss the most about RPG writting is silly answers. Be able to call Navaro base,
to be able to laugh at the last Boss, and so on.
And I think Cain is aware that humour is an important part of the writting process. I hope so...

Choices have to be interesting, and for that you need creative people capable of conjuring up the appropriate scenarios that feed those choices. Obsidian doesn't have these people. Their writing in their last 3 games has been dry and high school level at best.

 

[Junmarko]

Judging from a pure gameplay perspective, Troika's games are garbage. Arcanum and ToEE are more interesting as build simulators than anything else. Huge chunks of content are gated behind C&C mechanics. Bugs abound, and sully the entire experience. The original premise of their one unique IP isn't even that interesting (hurr durr magic vs. tech), and had better execution elsewhere. I played them as a kid and had fun, but let's not kid ourselves - if they came out today you'd call them janky Russian shovelware.

You're ignoring how many of the best CRPGs have severe flaws, and haven't been devalued by them - but rather bolstered by a larger set of traits that outweigh them and give a game cult-status among CRPG enthusiasts as a result.

Actual "Garbage" doesn't do so well over time and is swiftly forgotten - absence of discussion decades on says everything.

 

[Egosphere]

Obsidian's Alpha Protocol fit all those criteria - great game. It was also a bug-ridden, incomplete, mess.

The second part of your sentence invalidates the first. You can't have a 'great game' that's also fundamentally flawed in its execution, because the latter turns the entire experience into frustration.

You can. It's called a flawed masterpiece.

A game is supposed to be enjoyable. No matter how much the storyfags disagree (and I count myself among them!), a game should first and foremost entertain with its mechanics and execution.

Silent Hill 2 is still considered the greatest survival horror game to date. It was not very enjoyable to play. Outside gaming, many great movies and books are not 'enjoyable'. Lynch, Kubrick, Tarkovski: Joyce, McCarthy, Faulkner etc. Digital popcorn like superhero movies are never held up as the apotheosis of cinema, yet in gaming this happens time and time again.

 

[Deleted Member 22431]

This is what PoE brought.

 

[Deleted Member 22431]

You have some unrealistic expectations about the game. Imho today is several times harder to create the equivalent of what Fallout was in 1997 ... not to mention that nobody can say what such an equivalent would be.

not to mention that they don't want, nor can make even mildly complex cRPGs anymore. The type of shit Obsidian has been releasing for years... now imagine under the rule of Microsoft. Obsidian fanboys always labor under the illusion that their next game will be their masterpiece they really wanted to make.

It will be unredeemable and unplayable shit.

GET THE FUCK OUTTA HERE!

 

[Metro]

Why do people keep betting on the remnants of Obsidian being able to make a quality game? While the aesthetics/setting of this game might be cool, the game itself will be mediocre to poor.

 

[Trans-Financial-Man]

So many mad cucks in this thread, I love it!

You fags would probably queue in line to suck off Cain and Feargus, and you'd pay them for the privilege.

Oh you good boy. go take a long walk off a short pier. It'll get you more attention than you have right now so I'm sure you'll jump at the chance.

 

[Roguey]

Why do people keep betting on the remnants of Obsidian being able to make a quality game? While the aesthetics/setting of this game might be cool, the game itself will be mediocre to poor.

Cain and Boyarsky still have reputation to coast on despite the utter travesty that's left of everyone else.

 

[SlumLord]

You can. It's called a flawed masterpiece.

I'd like to personally strangle the first limp-wristed retard who put together those two words. There's no such thing as a flawed masterpiece, only gradients of garbage.

Silent Hill 2 is still considered the greatest survival horror game to date. It was not very enjoyable to play.

It also didn't CTD every 5 minutes and require 6 months of patches to be playable.

Outside gaming, many great movies and books are not 'enjoyable'. Lynch, Kubrick, Tarkovski: Joyce, McCarthy, Faulkner etc.

Yes, and only pretentious dickwads pretend to enjoy them. Art should mirror function - a square wheel might be innovative and interesting, but it fails in its primary function: to spin as efficiently as possible. Art that mauls the audience with incoherent and semi-comprehensible gibberish is nothing more than glorified masturbation. It's interesting you mention McCarthy - IMHO he's the premier onanist of the modern age (the cretin went so far as to disregard punctuation in one of his books - this is the equivalent of speaking with a lips in an IRL conversation, because norms and conventions regarding information transfer exist for a reason, and their violation serves only to degrade the channels of transfer... something McCarthy obvious never fully grasped).

Digital popcorn like superhero movies are never held up as the apotheosis of cinema, yet in gaming this happens time and time again

Agreed. But this only happens because gaming as an industry is an even greater pit of shit than modern cinema (hard to believe, I know).

 

[Junmarko]

I'd like to personally strangle the first limp-wristed retard who put together those two words. There's no such thing as a flawed masterpiece, only gradients of garbage

Something a frustrated designer would say - not a gamer. You sound intimidated.

Which hipster indie studio do you work for?

You fags would probably queue in line to suck off Cain and Feargus, and you'd pay them for the privilege.

...one feeling defeat already eh? lol.

 

[SlumLord]

Something a frustrated designer would say - not a gamer. You sound intimidated.

And you sound like a faggot. And an apologist. Generally speaking, there is no end-product that doesn't suffer from flaws. Sometimes, these flaws are tiny and don't register enough to matter, but other times they're so prevalent they ruin the product's capacity to function (any of Obsidian's many games are a testament to this).

Stop being a nut-licking cuck, and start demanding better service from the gaming industry. Imagine if our cars had a 15% chance to stop working every time you lit the ignition... but this seems tolerable in gamedev. Just because the industry produces entertainment doesn't give it carte blanche to churn out garbage. If people demanded at least a baseline of quality assurance (ie., no game-breaking bugs), then the companies would be forced to hire competent developers instead of neon-colored freaks to who they pay peanuts and who inevitably produce lackluster work that you, the end consumer, pays for.

Christ, you morons are more brainwashed than Apple zombies.

 

[Black Angel]

*deeply thinking what tags to petition for SlumLord*