Pillars of Eternity Beta Discussion [GAME RELEASED, GO TO NEW THREAD]

[Russia is over. The end.]

Care to explain where do you get both the Fargo and the Obsidian one from? Have you been at a job interview at them?

Sure. Fargo said it himself in an interview with Matt Barton. And with Obsidian it's a straightforward conclusion, given that "most obsidian employees never played IE games".

a 3D modeller or an effects designer doesn't have to know the IE games. He needs imagination and talent to create stuff, that's all. It is the designer's and artists job to tell the modeller if his/her creations are in line with the vision of the game.

Oh yeah, write a memo on BG style instead of making people see it for themselves and form their own professional conclusions (more professional than yours, you being a lead designer, not necessarily a professional modeler).

And OK, it's possible to describe those things. But instead, they printed out some screenshots. Screenshots, printed out on paper.

Bester do you think PoE will be shit, or you are just angry cause its not what you wanted it to be?
Honest question, i can't tell if its dissapointment or butthurt.

It's a mix. I think it'll be mediocre, while it could've been so much more, but also they made so many decisions that are so bad that it's borderline sabotage. The things they promised and never delivered (for some very bad reasons) - it's crazy.

- Where is the low INT dialogues? "Our writers are up to the task" they said, and now? Are they not up to the task, what is the problem? Want to at least elaborate on that?

- "Talents will be divided into social and combat". Well? Did you just fail to make up enough social mechanics for the talents to deserve its own tab?

- "The game will be moddabe, we'll export stuff". Sensuki asked a question on the Obsidian forums - a straightforward and simple question, why did Fargo export scenes in W2 and why aren't you doing it? A month later, still no answer. What is it? Do they not care at all, do they not read the forums, do they not hold themselves just a little bit accountable for the promises that they made, just enough to give at least a one line answer?

- After a few years of development, it turns out that most of their staff never played IE games. It turns out that the ones that did, didn't like Baldur's Gate 2. What? Is it not important to mention in the KS pitch?

- Where is Avellone?

- Their approach "meta knowledge bad, unbalance bad, hard counters bad, DYING bad, mages bad, etc"... Excuse me, but the best RPG titles used those mechanics (that some would call the essence of those games, even) and became the greatest RPGs ever. If you're going to invent a square wheel, it's definitely something worth mentioning, isn't it? Or discussing with the backers?? Did they make polls like Fargo did for the important things? What stopped them?

- Considering how their programmers can't make a single change to a single UI element ("we don't have enough time!") and that months after the game was initially planned to be released it's still riddled with bugs, it's either that they royally fucked up all their planning, or they moved programmers away to other projects where they face penalties from publishers, and left the kickstarter project (no publisher, not important) understaffed. Very nice, thank you very much.

- When they asked people about engagement, it made sense because backliners (mages, archers) were supposed to be a threat, thus misleading everyone into believing that this system was useful. It's not, and it's bad.

- Their UI decisions are mind boggling. It's minor, granted, but it shows how much they just don't care. Green selection circles for everyone? Is it lost knowledge that neutral npcs should have a different color? Is it lost knowledge that inventory items should be moved around in combat? Is it lost knowledge that characters moving around in combat is tactical and natural? Is it lost knowledge that mages should wear robes? (it's currently more effective to have naked mages......... naked... mages....) Each of that decision on itself is very alarming, but together they form a clear decline. "Yeah I remember playing some IE game back in 2000... it had green circles... i think... yeah, green circles for everyone it is, then".

Note that I'm not even mentioning things that are taste-related, such as music and writing (mostly Josh's writing... the history of the world... god it's bad).

P.S. most of the kickstarter updates were just empty fillers, information-wise. We are working hard at bringing you the game, we are very excited, we can't thank you enough, blah blah blah. And then the beta comes out with all those things that are just wrong.

 

[Zorba the Hutt]

It has been my impression that Obsidian in general and Sawyer in particular has communicated in an arrogant and patronizing way to the backers that presented criticism (constructive or not).

Could you provide some examples of that? Because I honestly think that the Sawyer some people hate is an entirely fictional character and not his real persona.

inb4 a new thread split
Josh cut his teeth in years of forum flame wars and tends to be quite outspoken when communicating with backers, which goes down well with some people and annoys others. Combined with Roguey's spamming of Sawyer comments around here... well, it's provided plenty of fuel for the megathreads.

This stuff has all been posted before so I'll spoiler it, but here is a sample: a couple of comments from during PoE development and the usual old controversial ones about his views on BG2 (which also fanned the flames when they turned up).

Spoiler

If it is not rewarding enough to play on its own, stop playing our terrible game.

If participating in a specific type of core gameplay is not enjoyable on its own, our game is bad and I sincerely encourage people to not engage in it/not play the game.

http://games.on.net/2014/03/if-you-...rnitys-josh-sawyer-on-dealing-with-grognards/

"Sawyer explains that the one thing he thinks modern games have done well is to “make their RPG system rulesets clear and consistent”. “The old D&D systems were not very consistent,” he says. “They were full of trap builds and ‘gotcha’ moments and stuff like that. I don’t think that’s good, I think it restricts player enjoyment a lot, for not a lot of gain.”

“Maybe the grognards like it, but for everyone else it’s kind of frustrating and so we try to get away from that as much as possible.”

“There are people that’ll say to me ‘oh man, it’s fun to do that’, but no. No, it’s not.”

"Sawyer laughs as he explains that even the most hardcore grognards will be the first to acknowledge that some of the things they’re asking for are just completely unacceptable.

“I don’t even think those memories (they have) are necessarily rose-tinted,” he says. “They’ll straight up admit that they like stuff that’s really grognard-ey, and they don’t care. That’s fair enough.”"

I often felt like I shouldn't be designing games for the BG audience because I loathed the NPCs in BG/BG2/TotSC so much

I really disliked most of the CNPCs, I really disliked being forced to go find Imoen, I really disliked the style of dialogue, and I really disliked being flooded with a million quests by every shmoe on the streets of Athkatla. Basically, there wasn't a whole lot I did like about it.

 

[Renfri]

Justin Bell: "Nobody liked BG2 music anyway, so I'll compose some low key melodies for you guys. This truly will be an IE successor!"

I wonder how good/bad is the music. I've only heard Dyrford and combat music (no access to beta). If someone could upload some songs to youtube? ^_^

 

[Sensuki]

This must be what Josh is in europe for

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10153150484259575

 

[Bleed the Man]

It has been my impression that Obsidian in general and Sawyer in particular has communicated in an arrogant and patronizing way to the backers that presented criticism (constructive or not).

Could you provide some examples of that? Because I honestly think that the Sawyer some people hate is an entirely fictional character and not his real persona.

inb4 a new thread split
Josh cut his teeth in years of forum flame wars and tends to be quite outspoken when communicating with backers, which goes down well with some people and annoys others. Combined with Roguey's spamming of Sawyer comments around here... well, it's provided plenty of fuel for the megathreads.

Yes, this I know, and I'm well aware that some of his design decisions are very badly recieved from some codexers (and not without reason), but all the stuff of him being some sort of tyranical, arrogant "holier than you" asshole is mostly a false impression given by the dislike of his design choices, and your examples, which I knew of, are the reason why I asked for examples, because those quotes doesn't sustain this claim in any way.

 

[Infinitron]

Loving Bester's rageposting. This game's release is going to be the best thing ever.

This must be what Josh is in europe for

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10153150484259575

Yay, more Twitch streams to newspost!

 

[Zorba the Hutt]

Yes, this I know, and I'm well aware that some of his design decisions are very badly recieved from some codexers (and not without reason), but all the stuff of him being some sort of tyranical, arrogant "holier than you" asshole is mostly a false impression given by the dislike of his design choices, and your examples, which I knew of, are the reason why I asked for examples, because those quotes doesn't sustain this claim in any way.

Ok, I'll leave it there then as those are all I could recall and I'm not really bothered enough either way to look for more quotes.

 

[Sensuki]

I think he has some valid concerns / disappointments about release tbh.

 

[Ellef]

C'mon, it was obvious they were name-dropping every IE game in their kickstarter pitch to hoover up as much nerd bucks as possible. It's become increasingly clear that they don't like much of what made the IE games, and they would have removed/altered even more and added cooldown and aggro mechanics if they could have gotten away with it.

 

[J_C]

- Where is the low INT dialogues? "Our writers are up to the task" they said, and now? Are they not up to the task, what is the problem? Want to at least elaborate on that?

There were no low INT dialogues in the IE games AFAIK, so we can say they are just following in the footsteps of those games.

- "Talents will be divided into social and combat". Well? Did you just fail to make up enough social mechanics for the talents to deserve its own tab?

You are right here.

- "The game will be moddabe, we'll export stuff". Sensuki asked a question on the Obsidian forums - a straightforward and simple question, why did Fargo export scenes in W2 and why aren't you doing it? A month later, still no answer. What is it? Do they not care at all, do they not read the forums, do they not hold themselves just a little bit accountable for the promises that they made, just enough to give at least a one line answer?

What answer are you waiting for? It is clear that thanks to Unity, the game is highly moddable.

- After a few years of development, it turns out that most of their staff never played IE games. It turns out that the ones that did, didn't like Baldur's Gate 2. What? Is it not important to mention in the KS pitch?

Are you retarded? Yeah, they should have probably mentioned this in the KS pitch. They should also close the company down by your logic, since if they are stupid enough to mention this in the pitch, it is clear that they don't want to work at that company. You also don't know how many of their staff haven't played the IE games.

- Where is Avellone?

He is writing the NPCs if you didn't know.

- Their approach "meta knowledge bad, unbalance bad, hard counters bad, DYING bad, mages bad, etc"... Excuse me, but the best RPG titles used those mechanics (that some would call the essence of those games, even) and became the greatest RPGs ever. If you're going to invent a square wheel, it's definitely something worth mentioning, isn't it? Or discussing with the backers?? Did they make polls like Fargo did for the important things? What stopped them?

You are right, this is Josh's retardation.

- Considering how their programmers can't make a single change to a single UI element ("we don't have enough time!") and that months after the game was initially planned to be released it's still riddled with bugs, it's either that they royally fucked up all their planning, or they moved programmers away to other projects where they face penalties from publishers, and left the kickstarter project (no publisher, not important) understaffed. Very nice, thank you very much.

You are a fucking idiot. Considering the content in the game, the size of the world and the number of missions, they are doing a miracle with that budget.

- When they asked people about engagement, it made sense because backliners (mages, archers) were supposed to be a threat, thus misleading everyone into believing that this system was useful. It's not, and it's bad.

We will see how does engagement works.

- Their UI decisions are mind boggling. It's minor, granted, but it shows how much they just don't care. Green selection circles for everyone? Is it lost knowledge that neutral npcs should have a different color?

Help me out here. I thought they changed this in the latest version. Or was that just a mod?

Is it lost knowledge that inventory items should be moved around in combat?

It is not carved in stone that you should be able to do this. It is not the cornerstone of any RPG.

Is it lost knowledge that characters moving around in combat is tactical and natural?

Again, it depends on te game. Moving around freely is not a must in RPGs.

Is it lost knowledge that mages should wear robes? (it's currently more effective to have naked mages......... naked... mages....)

Uhm, why would mages be restricted to robes?

Note that I'm not even mentioning things that are taste-related, such as music and writing (mostly Josh's writing... the history of the world... god it's bad).

Yeah, generic Forgotten Realms world sure is unique and worth copying.

P.S. most of the kickstarter updates were just empty fillers, information-wise. We are working hard at bringing you the game, we are very excited, we can't thank you enough, blah blah blah.

I could list you a dozen of KS update which was about combat, talents, art, music, area design, but I won't, because I've already wasted more time on your stupid shit than I should have.

And then the beta comes out with all those things that are just wrong.

The beta is there to be wrong. That is why it is a beta. They improved a lot thank to the feedback players gave them.

 

[Rake]

I think he has some valid concerns / disappointments about release tbh.

Yes. While i don't share his view of the game, most of the things he complained about are true to some degree.

 

[GrainWetski]

This must be what Josh is in europe for

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10153150484259575

I've always been curious.. How do they choose these people? After Mathas, it's like they just put random names in a hat. Guess they want as little fanbase overlap as possible, so they're fine with people that have never played a Paradox game in their life(besides Magicka)?

 

[Infinitron]

It's become increasingly clear that they don't like much of what made the IE games, and they would have removed/altered even more and made it turn-based and classless like Fallout if they could have gotten away with it.

Fixed.

The secret to understanding PoE may be that the devs didn't expect so many people to be so grognardy about a bunch of games they thought were already pretty popamolish. Fallout is the spark in Sawyer's eye, not the Forgotten Realms.

 

[agris]

You know who extensively asks about rpg experience during interviews? Fargo. And Obsidian? They don't care either way, yeah it's a minor plus if you played something, but whatever.

Is this your inference, or did you read it somewhere?

edit: already answered above. A Matt Chat interview (for Fargo), and inference for Feargus.

 

[Rostere]

I vaguely remember Sawyer arguing against my suggestion of a classless system because PoE should be "like the IE games".

I think the key is actually that "the IE games" means first and foremost the IWD games, and only secondly the others, to many Obsidian employees.

 

[aeonsim]

It's nice to see some people still live in fairy land where the final product of a game that is described/pitched in broad out lines exactly what their vision of the game would be. A wonderful world where 4 million dollars before the various fees and physical addons are counted (that will be 25-30% of the budget minimum and does nothing to help make the game) is actually equal to infinite money and infinite staff. A world where the slightest bug found immediately has it's own team of crack developers assigned to it because it's their job to sit around waiting for a bug to be found with no other responsibility or deadlines. A world where vision never runs into practical limitations, time constrains, budgets and turned out to be perfectly fun. Where every piece of fan feed back is instantly responded too and every suggestion in implemented exactly as described even if it requires a personal build for each fan.

Now maybe it's time to meet reality:
Games and all well developed software have a thing known as a budget and a schedule, they have a list of things known as possible features ranked based on how important they are and estimates of how long they will take and how much they will cost. Now when these estimates are wrong (and they overall are always wrong in a more time/more money way) features get cut, and not every thing gets done. Not to mention random stuff always goes wrong somewhere and that costs time and money (lead developer comes down with the flu, well you've still got to pay them and you just lost a week of there development time).
Based on this schedule and budget developers get assigned a list of tasks, and the number of developers that can be assigned is limited by budget and personal who are familiar with the code base and game systems. The cost to bring in new developers who are not familiar with the code and project is high because you've got to budget time for them to familiarise them selves with everything, while your current developers who are familiar with it already have long lists of things that need to be done and thus if you reassign them the things they were supposed to be done don't get done.
In the position we are in we don't get to see the trade off's they have to make to get the game made, we just see the results and a few intermediate steps. You complain about how they're not fixing minor bugs, well perhaps they would have if they'rd not had to spend several days porting to game upto a never Unity build to deal with an unforeseen bug that was fucking up their Linux and OSX builds which were hard promises, or having to redo the XP system because a vocal group was creating enough negativity around it that it at risking of damaging the game.


The most important thing was that they deliver a functional game that can be described to some degree to be spiritual successor to an infinity engine be that game be BG1, IWD, PST, BG2 or IWD2. A game that meets the specific promises they made and widely advertised and included in there list of stretch goals (X classes, Y races, Mega dungeon (15 levels), Big towns, Windows/Linux/OSX) anything that was discussed but was not listed and advertised as a core goal or stretch goal is a bonus if they can stretch the budget far enough to do it. An individual developer saying in an update that they will do something or would like to do something (IF the BUDGET allows) is not a promise and is not the same thing as Obsidian as a company saying we will do exactly this.

 

[Bleed the Man]

I vaguely remember Sawyer arguing against my suggestion of a classless system because PoE should be "like the IE games".

I think the key is actually that "the IE games" means first and foremost the IWD games, and only secondly the others, to many Obsidian employees.

I highly doubt IWD is the main reference. For combat maybe, but I think it's pretty obvious that the main source of inspiration is the Baldur's Gate series, being the most successful of the lot. The structure that PoE follows pretty much confirms it, being very BG-esque. Baldur's Gate is some sort of middle ground between the story-faggotry and dungeon crawling of the other series, so it kinda makes sense to be the mirror for PoE to look at.

Also, I don't think removing classes in a heavily DnD inspired game is a very intelligent move. If "minor" things as the absence of hard counters is seen as some sort of betrayal and not like the IE games at all, the outrage for being classles would be far greater.

 

[Sensuki]

snip

Having spoken with Bester privately about the issue, he's not living in fairy land. Design decisions aside, he has some concerns about the programming fix rate and some other stuff like that. The fix rate in the recent patch was quite good, but previously it's been quite a lot slower (for the amount of programmers they had on the project).

I wouldn't know what to expect personally, Bester would have a better idea than me.

snip #2 on XP

Josh said changing the XP was a trivial thing to do on the code side, but I'm not glad that they caved to it in the way they did (or on health healing for that matter) - bandaid over the bullethole solutions

 

[Rostere]

I vaguely remember Sawyer arguing against my suggestion of a classless system because PoE should be "like the IE games".

I think the key is actually that "the IE games" means first and foremost the IWD games, and only secondly the others, to many Obsidian employees.

I highly doubt IWD is the main reference. For combat maybe, but I think it's pretty obvious that the main source of inspiration is the Baldur's Gate series, being the most successful of the lot. The structure that PoE follows pretty much confirms it, being very BG-esque. Baldur's Gate is some sort of middle ground between the story-faggotry and dungeon crawling of the other series, so it kinda makes sense to be the mirror for PoE to look at.

You know, I agree and that was what I thought at first as well. But interviews and forum posts has had me thinking otherwise.

Also, I don't think removing classes in a heavily DnD inspired game is a very intelligent move. If "minor" things as the absence of hard counters is seen as some sort of betrayal and not like the IE games at all, the outrage for being classles would be far greater.

Those are just my personal preferences. I don't give a shit if P:E is similar to the IE games or not, as long as it's a good game

 

[Russia is over. The end.]

aeonsim sure, except when you need to develop a new subsystem or a submechanic, you don't need programmers to be very familiar with your project, a glance here and there should suffice. This is the case for any new mage spells that they said they couldn't "afford", because each would've "required coding omg". Hiring a freelancer wouldn't have been a strain on the budget, these people don't cost much at all. Yet they chose to completely ignore that route, opting to kill mages instead of hiring somebody from the outside. Some irrational fears or simply general apathy, I suppose?

You complain about how they're not fixing minor bugs, well perhaps they would have if they'rd not had to spend several days porting to game upto a never Unity build to deal with an unforeseen bug that was fucking up their Linux and OSX builds which were hard promises, or having to redo the XP system because a vocal group was creating enough negativity around it that it at risking of damaging the game.

Unity 4.6 is basically 4.5 with a new ui system, the use of which is completely optional, and they said it themselves, they didn't encounter any problems with the upgrade, and they shouldn't have. And hooking up the combat XP didn't require "redoing" anything (yeah, redoing = very time consuming), it was most likely a matter of 2-3 hours in total from the looks of the system. If they did have some huge unforeseeable emergency type situation that diverted them from all the bug fixing, then we don't know about it. What we do know is that the game was planned to be released months ago and it's still in a sorry state, and it looks like they're not assigning more people to remedy this situation. (or even if they are, they are swamped to the point of not being able to introduce smallest features that require 5 minutes max, so obviously not enough people are assigned, tons of bugs won't get fixed, despite it being delayed so much already)

 

[Duraframe300]

I think he has some valid concerns / disappointments about release tbh.

Its a bit too early to be disappointed about something that happens in the future. Concerns, ok.

And while I do see some of the concerns myself I think a lot of people in here take issue more with the rambling way he currently presents them than with the concerns themselves.

 

[aeonsim]

aeonsim sure, except when you need to develop a new subsystem or a submechanic, you don't need programmers to be very familiar with your project, a glance here and there should suffice. This is the case for any new mage spells that they said they couldn't "afford", because each would've "required coding omg". Hiring a freelancer wouldn't have been a strain on the budget, these people don't cost much at all. Yet they chose to completely ignore that route, opting to kill mages instead of hiring somebody from the outside. Some irrational fears or simply general apathy, I suppose?

You seriously believe that? Speaking from experience bringing in new people to add subsystem or sub mechanics is as risky as hell, it can go well or it can go horribly wrong, or it can simply have minor flow on effects that cause problems further down the road. It's a highly risky thing to do and not something you do in the last 6months of a software project! Secondly look it's rather simple if you hire more people you spend more money if you've already got a budget you have to cut something. Also contractors/freelancers are expensive often >2x the cost of an internal developer, because it's not a permanent position they charge a lot more!

You complain about how they're not fixing minor bugs, well perhaps they would have if they'rd not had to spend several days porting to game upto a never Unity build to deal with an unforeseen bug that was fucking up their Linux and OSX builds which were hard promises, or having to redo the XP system because a vocal group was creating enough negativity around it that it at risking of damaging the game.

Unity 4.6 is basically 4.5 with a new ui system, the use of which is completely optional, and they said it themselves, they didn't encounter any problems with the upgrade, and they shouldn't have. And hooking up the combat XP didn't require "redoing" anything (yeah, redoing = very time consuming), it was most likely a matter of 2-3 hours in total from the looks of the system. If they did have some huge unforeseeable emergency type situation that diverted them from all the bug fixing, then we don't know about it. What we do know is that the game was planned to be released months ago and it's still in a sorry state, and it looks like they're not assigning more people to remedy this situation. (or even if they are, they are swamped to the point of not being able to introduce smallest features that require 5 minutes max, so obviously not enough people are assigned, tons of bugs won't get fixed, despite it being delayed so much already)

I'm glad that the Unity 4.5 to 4.6 upgrade worked will but you can't assume that from the start, minor version upgrades are nigthmares because they can appear to work fine then later you find something broken. It may have taken them two hours to make the changes but how many hours of unit testing and validation did they have to do afterwards to make sure something hadn't snuck in. You also say it's completely minor basically a new UI system, but they didn't make the upgrade for the UI system from what I understand but because it fixed an issue with the Linux build that was bad enough that they couldn't release a properly functional Linux build, and that they couldn't backport to there previous version.

People just don't magically appear, where are they supposed to acquire them from? Development studios don't just have spare developers floating around so where are they going to get them from you DO NOT hire free lancers give them access to the code and tell them to get to work with out spending time to bring them up to date with what your doing and how your doing it. Lots of development groups have internal stylistic guides for code, code must be written in a certain manner and style so that later on people can understand it and so you don't need to bring in your external expert again and again. A contractor who doesn't write code to spec should have there work rejected if a company has any sense because the risk is too great to allow it into the code base. As for their internal developers most will be assigned to projects with external funding if they pull people off those projects for PoE they'll delay those other projects. If they delay those other projects they risk missing milestones and then risk the Producers hitting them with financial penalties.

I don't know what your background is with regards to programming and team software development but your making assumptions that would scare the shit out of a lot of project managers and software engineers that I've dealt with for a number of years and on several large scale projects.

 

[aeonsim]

By the way as a point of comparison to the PoE kickstarter which is working fairly well go read up on where Peter Molyneux's Godus is:
http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2015/02/09/oh-godus-what-the-hells-going-on/

Seriously watch the video in this one:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V0P9yYG0G5I#t=189

http://kotaku.com/peter-molyneuxs-godus-is-having-serious-problems-1685009738

The Linux version, added as an achieved stretch goal, has shown no signs of appearing (and the game is built in an engine that doesn’t support Linux).

"I take the point that some of the pledges should have been met, and that we should have taken the time to work on them."

 

[Russia is over. The end.]

aeonsim
I've no team experience, that's for sure, so I'm not asserting things, I only question things.
- You say freelancers cost twice as much. Freelancers from europe cost less, not much, and they did employ (or was it inXile?) at least one guy from Italy who did something map related, so they do and can employ them without fears of different "code styles" (there aren't twenty ways to code things on Unity, so I'm kinda skeptical of that point entirely anyway... and stylistic guides... I hope you don't mean things like starting a new line before an accolade? because who cares about it when more important things are on the line)
- Their framework is very solid and clear, I've seen it and I've written mods for POE, you don't need to explain anything to a freelancer, just give him the code and say 'go'.
- Any code produced by a freelancer can be inspected by the in-house programmer and if some section is not sufficiently commented, you can always inquire about it, but I wouldn't even particularly worry about this type of situation - it would happen rarely and wouldn't waste much of anyone's time. It's still more time efficient than not having the functionality at all.
- As to where they'd find them - look how inXile did it. Whenever they needed some, they'd just post about it and they'd have people banging on their doors. It doesn't look like much of a problem.

Anyway, I do understand that some people would have irrational fears of this approach, and that's what I assumed their problem was. I see a problem and a possible solution, while they prefer to have no solution at all.

And my main concerns with poe lie in another field entirely anyway, bugs or not bugs, their game is too mediocre and too disappointing, too many unfulfilled and sometimes completely misleading promises.

 

[Sensuki]

hint hint badler hire Bester (and his wife?) for expansion

I thought it was inXile who hired the Italian guy?

inXile seem more likely to employ distant contractors / people from overseas than Obsidian I think, who seem to be very focused on local employment.