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

[Jedi Master Radek]

Preview of the documentary about making PoE:


I actually love it

 

[Infinitron]

Whoa. Posted 5 days ago. You catch that by accident?

 

[J_C]

Preview of the documentary about making PoE:


I actually love it

Can't wait for the other ones. This is great.

 

[Merlkir]

Whoa. Posted 5 days ago. You catch that by accident?

It was just posted on Facebook.

Anyone knows when it's supposed to be released? With the game maybe?

 

[Jedi Master Radek]

Whoa. Posted 5 days ago. You catch that by accident?

I caught it in the least romantic way possible.

 

[Arkeus]

Whoa. Posted 5 days ago. You catch that by accident?

http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/70...t-the-making-of-poe-documentary/#entry1580190 It's also in the announcement page of the obsidian forum.

 

[Athelas]

I thought it was the tank MMO that pulled Obsidian back from the brink? Though I suppose signing on to produce a Russian free2play MMO in a bid of desperation wouldn't make for the most uplifting documentary.

 

[Bester]

It's amazing how after years of existence they still don't have enough money to develop a game on their own and are pitching to publishers left and right. I mean if I owned a gamedev company, first order of the business would be to accumulate enough money to self-fund game development. Why don't they have any money, wtf?

 

[Athelas]

I'm guessing it's a bit more complicated than 'save up all the monies'.

 

[Merlkir]

Why are people poor idk right. lol. If I had a game studio, I'd be super successful and rich and my games would be amazing lol.

 

[Infinitron]

Obsidian do have money - they're using it finish up PoE right now - but I guess it was not enough to self-fund a game without taking excessive risks. There's been talk about that before, but it always fell through. Roguey can provide details.

Could they have gone all out and pulled a Larian? I don't know. Do keep in mind that Feargus is Scottish.

 

[Duraframe300]

It's amazing how after years of existence they still don't have enough money to develop a game on their own and are pitching to publishers left and right. I mean if I owned a gamedev company, first order of the business would be to accumulate enough money to self-fund game development. Why don't they have any money, wtf?

They don't get a share of the sales and they only got royalities on one project.

Milestone payments cover the burnrate (~1Mil a month) but theres not exactly much left over.

 

[Merlkir]

One thing that puzzles me a bit that constantly comes up in interviews and panels is the supposed difficulty with modding scenes. Have they ever elaborated what they mean by that?

I mean...it's not like it's some esoteric magic. You model the scene in 3D and do renders in a few different passes, then let the engine chew on it. Add a navmesh and you're golden. Right? It's harder than using a block engine like NWN had, sure, but there are some very capable modders out there, with professional skills in 3D/2D.

 

[AwesomeButton]

One thing that puzzles me a bit that constantly comes up in interviews and panels is the supposed difficulty with modding scenes. Have they ever elaborated what they mean by that?

I mean...it's not like it's some esoteric magic. You model the scene in 3D and do renders in a few different passes, then let the engine chew on it. Add a navmesh and you're golden. Right? It's harder than using a block engine like NWN had, sure, but there are some very capable modders out there, with professional skills in 3D/2D.

Watch here, around the "It's not easy" bookmark: http://www.gdcvault.com/play/1019680/Gathering-Your-Party-with-Project

They actually outsourced the areas to a whole other company

 

[Bester]

I'm guessing it's a bit more complicated than 'save up all the monies'.

Do you think that they tried to save up enough to self-fund and that they failed? Cause after years and for a company of this size, is it really that impossible? Or maybe the owners/shareholders take all the usd to themselves? I don't know about the company enough, that's why I'm asking.

 

[coffeetable]

It's amazing how after years of existence they still don't have enough money to develop a game on their own and are pitching to publishers left and right. I mean if I owned a gamedev company, first order of the business would be to accumulate enough money to self-fund game development. Why don't they have any money, wtf?

a software company the size of obsidian (100 ppl?) eats about a million a month

 

[Merlkir]

One thing that puzzles me a bit that constantly comes up in interviews and panels is the supposed difficulty with modding scenes. Have they ever elaborated what they mean by that?

I mean...it's not like it's some esoteric magic. You model the scene in 3D and do renders in a few different passes, then let the engine chew on it. Add a navmesh and you're golden. Right? It's harder than using a block engine like NWN had, sure, but there are some very capable modders out there, with professional skills in 3D/2D.

Watch here, around the "It's not easy" bookmark: http://www.gdcvault.com/play/1019680/Gathering-Your-Party-with-Project

They actually outsourced the areas to a whole other company

I remember. He actually says the wilderness maps were quite fast to make. The outsourcing was due to them not having the time, not because it's difficult. Josh mentions they have a 3D blockout tool for level design - that could be handy for modders.

 

[Anthony Davis]

It's amazing how after years of existence they still don't have enough money to develop a game on their own and are pitching to publishers left and right. I mean if I owned a gamedev company, first order of the business would be to accumulate enough money to self-fund game development. Why don't they have any money, wtf?

It's very easy to say this - but it's really an uninformed statement.

The business side of things is complicated and public. Like Feargus says in the video, publishers are aware if a company is in trouble and they will move to take advantage of that. This means where as before you might have factored in some profit into a budget you pitch, now that has to go out because the publisher is going to put your feet in the fire because they know you are desperate.

Some publishers most assuredly will pull out or reduce whatever royalty or bonus you might have received, or increase the difficulty in getting it, if they know your company is hurting.

In many cases, you are reduced to buying time.



Most independent game companies last something on the order of less than 2 years. I don't remember the statistic anymore, but it is a pretty dismal success rate.

TimeGate lasted 14 years and they were actually doing fine till they were counter sued (and lost) when they sued for royalties.

Obsidian has been around for almost 12 years. Thankfully, Thank You God, we are doing well now.

I love this company. We have had layoffs, and we've had some dark times - but this company is a rarity compared to most companies these days. Every single owner has gone without pay - for MONTHS to protect their employees. We've had other employees step up and volunteer to take temporary pay cuts to help keep other employees on. It might sound cheesy to some of the more bitter codexians, but stuff like that really shows the rest of the company that people here actually care.

Pillars was a big step for us, and I hope it continues to do well for Obsidian.

 

[coffeetable]

wondering how big obsidian is made me look them up on glassdoor

http://www.glassdoor.co.uk/Reviews/Obsidian-Entertainment-Reviews-E151435.htm

 

[Bester]

One thing that puzzles me a bit that constantly comes up in interviews and panels is the supposed difficulty with modding scenes. Have they ever elaborated what they mean by that?

I mean...it's not like it's some esoteric magic. You model the scene in 3D and do renders in a few different passes, then let the engine chew on it. Add a navmesh and you're golden. Right? It's harder than using a block engine like NWN had, sure, but there are some very capable modders out there, with professional skills in 3D/2D.

I don't know enough about their scenes, but...
- You don't just "add a navmesh" in Unity. Normally you have a 3d terrain with static objects and Unity bakes a navmesh for you (and it's very shitty... hard to make a good navmesh on uneven terrain), but since the whole level is just a 2d image, how do you bake a navmesh for that? Obviously some original way is used.
- They have some additional mechanics for the following: the background is just a 2d image, and yet the game knows that your character is now standing behind a table and therefore the character's legs shouldn't be rendered. Idk how they do it, cause there are different ways to approach this.
- They have some things that allow them to cast dynamic light on walls for instance, how are they made? Idk.

But yeah, I definitely don't think that it's inhumanly hard, they just have to explain the process and that's it.

 

[Athelas]

Do you think that they tried to save up enough to self-fund and that they failed? Cause after years and for a company of this size, is it really that impossible? Or maybe the owners/shareholders take all the usd to themselves? I don't know about the company enough, that's why I'm asking.

Obsidian isn't publicly traded, so the owners are the share holders, and there are five owners.

The beginning of the documentary is about the pre-Kickstarter period, so you're talking about a self-funded AAA RPG. Those are expensive, yes. Bioware was at the top of their game a few years back, every game they released a commercial and critical success...and they still had to be bought out by EA to keep up with the increasing costs of game development.

 

[Infinitron]

I don't think Bioware "had" to be bought out. As far as I can tell, it was the Biodocs' intention to make some really good/successful games that would raise the company's net worth, sell out and then go big. Like a start-up company making an exit.

Feargus may have had similar designs, but they never panned out.

 

[Merlkir]

One thing that puzzles me a bit that constantly comes up in interviews and panels is the supposed difficulty with modding scenes. Have they ever elaborated what they mean by that?

I mean...it's not like it's some esoteric magic. You model the scene in 3D and do renders in a few different passes, then let the engine chew on it. Add a navmesh and you're golden. Right? It's harder than using a block engine like NWN had, sure, but there are some very capable modders out there, with professional skills in 3D/2D.

I don't know enough about their scenes, but...
- You don't just "add a navmesh" in Unity. Normally you have a 3d terrain with static objects and Unity bakes a navmesh for you (and it's very shitty... hard to make a good navmesh on uneven terrain), but since the whole level is just a 2d image, how do you bake a navmesh for that? Obviously some original way is used.
- They have some additional mechanics for the following: the background is just a 2d image, and yet the game knows that your character is now standing behind a table and therefore the character's legs shouldn't be rendered. Idk how they do it, cause there are different ways to approach this.
- They have some things that allow them to cast dynamic light on walls for instance, how are they made? Idk.

But yeah, I definitely don't think that it's inhumanly hard, they just have to explain the process and that's it.

1) Yeah, I've painted 2D bitmap navmeshes in other games, or made them by hand for 3D scenes out of polygons. It's not that hard, just dull and timeconsuming.
2) They render a depth pass for this. (basically, a value of a pixel in the image is the depth on the Z axis it has in the scene. Imagine it like if you took a sculpture and measured the height of every tiny point of it, then coloured a correspoinding pixel in the depth map with the appropriate shade of gray)
3) Diffuse and spec maps, which are also passes in the render. (Josh talks about this in the dev conference video.)

 

[Anthony Davis]

It's amazing how after years of existence they still don't have enough money to develop a game on their own and are pitching to publishers left and right. I mean if I owned a gamedev company, first order of the business would be to accumulate enough money to self-fund game development. Why don't they have any money, wtf?

It's very easy to say this - but it's really an uninformed statement.

The business side of things is complicated and public. Like Feargus says in the video, publishers are aware if a company is in trouble and they will move to take advantage of that. This means where as before you might have factored in some profit into a budget you pitch, now that has to go out because the publisher is going to put your feet in the fire because they know you are desperate.

Some publishers most assuredly will pull out or reduce whatever royalty or bonus you might have received, or increase the difficulty in getting it, if they know your company is hurting.

In many cases, you are reduced to buying time.



Most independent game companies last something on the order of less than 2 years. I don't remember the statistic anymore, but it is a pretty dismal success rate.

TimeGate lasted 14 years and they were actually doing fine till they were counter sued (and lost) when they sued for royalties.

Obsidian has been around for almost 12 years. Thankfully, Thank You God, we are doing well now.

I love this company. We have had layoffs, and we've had some dark times - but this company is a rarity compared to most companies these days. Every single owner has gone without pay - for MONTHS to protect their employees. We've had other employees step up and volunteer to take temporary pay cuts to help keep other employees on. It might sound cheesy to some of the more bitter codexians, but stuff like that really shows the rest of the company that people here actually care.

Pillars was a big step for us, and I hope it continues to do well for Obsidian.

I should also note that not ALL publishers are like this. A lot of them are though.

I don't even actually hold it against them, from their point of view, it's good business. I respect good business.

I also think Feargus and company would be the first to admit that they've made mistakes as well. Another thing I love about this company - it's very transparent internally. Feargus and company will often research and implement "fixes" into the production pipeline. As a whole, the company always strives to do things better.

 

[Deleted member 7219]

Love the documentary preview, looking forward to watching the full thing.

Obsidian are my BFFs right now.