Putting the 'role' back in role-playing games since 2002.
Donate to Codex
Good Old Games
  • Welcome to rpgcodex.net, a site dedicated to discussing computer based role-playing games in a free and open fashion. We're less strict than other forums, but please refer to the rules.

    "This message is awaiting moderator approval": All new users must pass through our moderation queue before they will be able to post normally. Until your account has "passed" your posts will only be visible to yourself (and moderators) until they are approved. Give us a week to get around to approving / deleting / ignoring your mundane opinion on crap before hassling us about it. Once you have passed the moderation period (think of it as a test), you will be able to post normally, just like all the other retards.

Company News The Knights of New Vegas: A History Of Obsidian Entertainment

circ

Arcane
Joined
Jun 4, 2009
Messages
11,470
Location
Great Pacific Garbage Patch
I'd rather have MCA just write a visual novel and spare us from whatever shitty gameplay we'd have to endure to read his writings.

Eh, mechanics would probably be dumbed down for consoletards, so yeah. But I quite like the gameplay of MM VI-VIII.

You must not have played many Obsidian games then. Although for some inexplainable reason, KoTOR II's camera is not something I'd fault it with, or controls. Half-assed and incomplete story, yes. But oh I forget, you can't blame anyone but evul publishurs especially with Obsidian.
 

Broseph

Dangerous JB
Patron
Joined
Nov 24, 2012
Messages
4,449
Location
Globohomo Gayplex
:retarded:

I've played NWN 2 OC, which was shit, and New Vegas, which was great. I'm not saying an Obsidian MM game would be perfect, but I'd certainly trust them with it more than any other AAA dev out there.
 

LundB

Mistakes were made.
Joined
Jan 2, 2012
Messages
4,160
Infinitron, you may be a bro, but linking to a Gawker media site like Kotaku is a nearly unforgivable sin.
 

Infinitron

I post news
Patron
Staff Member
Joined
Jan 28, 2011
Messages
99,628
Codex Year of the Donut Serpent in the Staglands Dead State Divinity: Original Sin Project: Eternity Torment: Tides of Numenera Wasteland 2 Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 A Beautifully Desolate Campaign Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Pathfinder: Kingmaker Pathfinder: Wrath I'm very into cock and ball torture I helped put crap in Monomyth
Sometimes they have exclusive content. What's a bro to do?
 

LundB

Mistakes were made.
Joined
Jan 2, 2012
Messages
4,160
Copy-paste the entire thing and shoot any lawyers they send.

"But officer, they looked just like a palestinian child, I swear!"
 

Roguey

Codex Staff
Staff Member
Sawyerite
Joined
May 29, 2010
Messages
36,716
Obsidian also talked to Take-Two about a game they called Futureblight. "We were gonna look at using the Neverwinter Nights engine to do a Fallout game," Urquhart said. "We thought that would be cool."
So Obsidian was going to steal the concept of Troika's rtwp PA-game? :)

One of those publishers was Disney, who enlisted Obsidian to design a video game prequel to Snow White and the Seven Dwarves.
...
"We put a lot of challenges in front of us," Urquhart said. "It's this interesting thing, I think, as an independent studio. And I'll give anybody this advice that I can. When somebody offers you something as an independent studio, you take it. You take it, because it's feast or famine. That's what we've found."
Barbie RPG: Definitely totally possible. :bounce:

They didn't have any sort of game specification document, Urquhart said, which is now something they require for all of their games: a listed, documented set of guidelines for exactly how a game will be designed and developed.
:lol: This is one of the most embarrassing things I've ever read about a veteran game development studio.

"We started getting into these arguments which were completely not helpful," he said. "Is it 70% RPG or 30% action, or is it 46% action and 50%... These things were not helpful. What we needed to say is: in a mission, Michael can do these things, you know, and this is the toolkit. He can unlock things, he can hack things, he can throw bombs, he can interact this way, he can interact that way."
Yesssssss.

Part of the problem was Sega's indecision, Urquhart said. "A great example is there was a whole segment of the game, which was really cool, and it probably cost $500,000 to make. It was a long sequence, lots of mocap and all this kind of stuff. And at the time Sega felt it just didn't fit the game... and so $500,000 cut. And you know, I understand: they pay us to make the game. It's totally their right to do that. It can just derail."
This is probably the cinematic QTE sequence of Michael Thorton struggling with a terrorist and jumping out of a plane that Alexander Brandon talked about. $500,000 for a QTE session.

Sega has no interest in making a sequel right now—development was costly and challenging, Urquhart points out—but anything could change, particularly as word of mouth for Alpha Protocol continues to spread. "It sold okay," Urquhart said. "We don't know if they made money or lost money, but we do know—and that's the interesting thing—it keeps selling."
"Now, knowing everything we know now, we would love to do Alpha Protocol 2, and everybody here would love to work on it," he said. "[Because] we now know what it is and how to do it... I'm hoping maybe in even a couple of years, [Sega] will get to kind of a point where everybody has kind of moved on, and the baggage is swept away. People are still positive about the brand. We get asked [about a sequel] all the time, still. It's become a cult classic."
I figured AP would eventually become Obsidian's Bloodlines even though a lot of people who inexplicably like the latter hate the former.

In 2006, as Neverwinter Nights 2 was finished and Alpha Protocol was just getting started, Obsidian was approached by three publishers at around the same time. One wanted to work with them on an "original fantasy RPG," Urquhart said.
I'm disappointed by how vague this is.

"We've talked to the Bethesda guys more than once about doing games," Urquhart said. "They called me once about Star Trek, and I was probably being a little bit too much, too arrogant of a developer... This would've been like 2007—way before the movies—and it was like, Star Trek wasn't in a good place. I don't know what I said, but I now know it probably sounded arrogant."
I bet Jaesun's going to be upset.

It's also very funny to me how Feargus Urquhart will say yes to Snow White, Dungeon Siege, and South Park, but give an arrogant "No way" to Star Trek. And good riddance. :smug:

Obsidian wasn't getting paid at this point, but the prospect of a South Park RPG was hard to resist, so Urquhart agreed to keep plugging away at it.
Desperation is a turn-off, Feargus. Must have been pretty desperate. :smug:

They've got two promising games on the way, and even just a few months ago, major publishers were knocking on their door: Urquhart told me he's been talking to Bethesda, Ubisoft, Warner Bros., and LucasArts.
Meh, talk is cheap. It only matters once the contracts are signed.

He's even got a dream project: Knights of the Old Republic III. On next-gen consoles.
"I think doing something like that on [Orbis and Durango] and things like that might be—I would be disappointed as a gamer if that never got made," Urquhart said. "I think a lot of gamers would be disappointed as well."
I would be perfectly happy to see KOTOR remain dead forever. Let Revan be the final canonical word, if only for all the angst it produces.
 

Infinitron

I post news
Patron
Staff Member
Joined
Jan 28, 2011
Messages
99,628
Codex Year of the Donut Serpent in the Staglands Dead State Divinity: Original Sin Project: Eternity Torment: Tides of Numenera Wasteland 2 Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 A Beautifully Desolate Campaign Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Pathfinder: Kingmaker Pathfinder: Wrath I'm very into cock and ball torture I helped put crap in Monomyth
Why, Roguey. Are you suggesting that dear old Feargy is faking his optimism? :eek:
 

Kirtai

Augur
Joined
Sep 8, 2012
Messages
1,124
"We as a company got into a big room and we said, ‘We are not gonna make buggy games anymore,'" Urquhart said.

So they designed an entirely new bug-tracking system—a computerized program that automatically sends crash reports to their engineers. Their last bug-recording system, Urquhart said, involved pens and paper.
:hmmm:
That revelation deserves a lot bigger response than that. Seriously, a pen and paper bug tracking system?
 

Tigranes

Arcane
Joined
Jan 8, 2009
Messages
10,350
Yeah, that is pretty awful. I hate judging on limited information but I just can't imagine a situation where that works well.

The Seven Dwarves pitch and the projected K3 all sound pretty meh to me, I hope they get the chance to do an original IP AAA game at some point... or AP2, which I would love.
 

Infinitron

I post news
Patron
Staff Member
Joined
Jan 28, 2011
Messages
99,628
Codex Year of the Donut Serpent in the Staglands Dead State Divinity: Original Sin Project: Eternity Torment: Tides of Numenera Wasteland 2 Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 A Beautifully Desolate Campaign Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Pathfinder: Kingmaker Pathfinder: Wrath I'm very into cock and ball torture I helped put crap in Monomyth
Well, he said it involved pen and paper, not that it was fully pen and paper.
 
Joined
Aug 28, 2012
Messages
997
Location
Dreams, where I'm a viking.
Project: Eternity Torment: Tides of Numenera
Right now, I'm imagining them writing bugs on post-it notes and sticking them to some dude's monitor to fix when he gets a chance. At the very least, type it into a spreadsheet. Since they were just playing the game when it crashed, we know they had computers.
 

Kirtai

Augur
Joined
Sep 8, 2012
Messages
1,124
I have to wonder how many major bugs went live due to that bugs post-it note falling off a monitor and down behind a desk.
 

Roguey

Codex Staff
Staff Member
Sawyerite
Joined
May 29, 2010
Messages
36,716
I hope they get the chance to do an original IP AAA game at some point
I see no reason now why they should ever do this unless we're talking about a hypothetical situation where they get multi-million profits from Eternity and Eternity-related products and are able to risk $10-$15 million of their own money into a PC-exclusive (the average budget of a single platform game was 10 million back in 2010 so this wouldn't be "cheap").
 

Roguey

Codex Staff
Staff Member
Sawyerite
Joined
May 29, 2010
Messages
36,716
Can you imagine... Might & Magic with writing from Codexian god emperor MCA... :bounce:

Why the fuck would you want MCA writing in a game that is essentially about open-world dungeon-crawling?
I'm under the impression it would have been more like Dark Messiah. Ubisoft's not going to fund a big expensive blobber in the 21st century.
 

Grunker

RPG Codex Ghost
Patron
Joined
Oct 19, 2009
Messages
27,763
Location
Copenhagen
Can you imagine... Might & Magic with writing from Codexian god emperor MCA... :bounce:

Why the fuck would you want MCA writing in a game that is essentially about open-world dungeon-crawling?
I'm under the impression it would have been more like Dark Messiah. Ubisoft's not going to fund a big expensive blobber in the 21st century.

I wasn't refering to the game proper, I was refering to the thought of dick-wanking to an M&M-game written by MCA.
 

Jaesun

Fabulous Ex-Moderator
Patron
Joined
May 14, 2004
Messages
37,432
Location
Seattle, WA USA
MCA Dead State Divinity: Original Sin Project: Eternity Torment: Tides of Numenera Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 BattleTech
I'm still curious what the M$ XBAX 720 or whatever next-gen game they were working on but was canned. :(

I'm still so fucking pissed off at SEGA for not even viewing the fucking Alien prototype Obsidian sent to them and didn't even try it. FUCKING FAGGOTS! I so fucking wanted that Alien RPG. May you burn in hell SEGA.
 

Wyrmlord

Arcane
Joined
Feb 3, 2008
Messages
28,904
They've got two promising games on the way, and even just a few months ago, major publishers were knocking on their door: Urquhart told me he's been talking to Bethesda, Ubisoft, Warner Bros., and LucasArts.
Sounds like the roles have reversed. Is it safe to say now that Obsidian is the commercially successful superstar and BioWare is now in the dark struggling for its existence?

Has the apprentice completely surpassed the master, or do I speak too soon?
 
Joined
Aug 28, 2012
Messages
997
Location
Dreams, where I'm a viking.
Project: Eternity Torment: Tides of Numenera
I'm still so fucking pissed off at SEGA for not even viewing the fucking Alien prototype Obsidian sent to them and didn't even try it. FUCKING FAGGOTS! I so fucking wanted that Alien RPG. May you burn in hell SEGA.

I bet they did and just pretended they didn't. There's no way anyone could resist their curiosity. They probably smoothed it out with in-house programmers, who they then murdered so no one would know that there was a fully-functional, awesome aliens rpg. To this day playing it is like the top, super-secret perk for everyone in the SEGA C-suite.
 

tuluse

Arcane
Joined
Jul 20, 2008
Messages
11,400
Serpent in the Staglands Divinity: Original Sin Project: Eternity Torment: Tides of Numenera Shadorwun: Hong Kong
They've got two promising games on the way, and even just a few months ago, major publishers were knocking on their door: Urquhart told me he's been talking to Bethesda, Ubisoft, Warner Bros., and LucasArts.
Sounds like the roles have reversed. Is it safe to say now that Obsidian is the commercially successful superstar and BioWare is now in the dark struggling for its existence?

Has the apprentice completely surpassed the master, or do I speak too soon?
Other than TOR, I bet every Bioware project has been successful for what it is.
 

eric__s

ass hater
Developer
Joined
Jun 13, 2011
Messages
2,301
Obsidian is a good company, the people there are all extraordinarily talented and I'm glad things are looking up for them.
 

As an Amazon Associate, rpgcodex.net earns from qualifying purchases.
Back
Top Bottom