Game News Tyranny Dev Diary #7: Companion Overview - Verse

[Endlösung]

Leave Tranny alone! Leave it alone! It might turn out ok...

Also, I get the feeling that the atmosphere in the game is more infantile comic-booky than PoE despite the "EVUL WON" shtick.
I mean, I cringed when I heard the girly voiceover of the topmodel warrior princes with the jewelry scars...

"I am a SCARLET FURY (mha moan), (pant) that should... raise some flags FOR U (big guy), it means that I am good at killing (casual) and more importantly that I enjoy it (moan)"

I dont think there is PoE character that is as phony as this one.

edit

Gee, I shouldnt have read what they have written. Even disregarding the fact that killing your own farm animals is fucking moronic and the writer is an imbecile, why make the obvious serial killer reference? Whats the point if it wont come up in the game anyway except for blips like the one above.

Like all members of the Chorus, Verse started out as a civilian in the southern continent of the Tiers – an ordinary girl on an ordinary farm. When the sun went down, she liked to sneak out to the barn and take a knife to the farm animals, and always sensed that she was destined for something more.

 

[Sacred82]

Animal cruelty? Most unusual. This won't sit well with libtards.

Like all members of the Chorus, Verse started out as a civilian in the southern continent of the Tiers – an ordinary girl on an ordinary farm. When the sun went down, she liked to sneak out to the yacht harbor and take a knife to the gentlemen's club, and always sensed that she was destined for something more.

There, that should go over better with the Bioware audience.

 

[Neanderthal]

Roostergirl got Bowie eyes?

 

[Lurker King]

Going by that flimsy logic, Amber Scott should be the best writer in the biz. After all, she wears a goddamn bard hat everywhere - how thoroughly geeky of her, she must kick ass as a game designer, right?

It’s much more fundamental than this. Why it is important that they are knowledgeable as they are advertising themselves? If a developer doesn’t really understand challenging cRPGs with well-thought-out character building and mechanics, you can’t expect them to deliver a good combat system. If a developer thinks that cringe wiki dump writing is good writing, you can’t expect then to deliver good writing. If a cRPG doesn’t have solid mechanics or good writing, you can just as well be playing Skriym or FO4. Why it is also important that developers have character? It’s important because they can compromise their design in a million ways, whether due to the complaints of causals or time constraints. I don’t know in which world a developer can be shallow and dishonest and still make good games. Maybe in the same world that Pillars can be considered good.

Tdlr

Obsidian developers were never the cRPGs experts that they like to portrait themselves to be and they always have shitty work ethics, compromising their work, releasing buggy games and putting the blame on publishers, etc., which also explains why they never become the Triple-A studio they always wanted to be. If wasn’t for two or three games that have some cool writing in it, they wouldn’t have made anything worth it. Now, they didn’t even know how to write anymore and are desperately catering to causals in a shameless manner. Fuck them.

Contrary to popular opinion, the Codex never had, and never will have, a uniform hivemind like/dislike of any game.

We don’t need universal consensus, but just some standards of taste. If the logic of “play whatever is available because we don’t have anymore games to play” becomes undisputed or common, this place will become another Kotaku in no time.

How over-the-top pretentious

You can be dismissive all you want. I learned more about cRPGs with some posters and reviewers here than with all the design talks of veterans posted all over the web combined. If you think that there is nothing to learn by posting here, that is your problem.

 

[Sizzle]

Obsidian developers were never the cRPGs experts that they like to portrait themselves to be

Apart from Sawyer, who is pretty knowledgeable about games, but frequently comes across as arrogant, which other Obsidian employees do you consider to be constantly falsely portraying themselves as RPG experts?

and they always have shitty work ethics

This is one of the things I love about you rabid Obsidian haters - it's not enough to criticize their games, oh no, you have to take it up to eleven and claim that even their animators and sound engineers are lazy and inept. Because why not.

If wasn’t for two or three games that have some cool writing in it, they wouldn’t have made anything worth it.

So, New Vegas with its faction system, Mask of The Betrayer with the spirit-eater mechanic, Alpha Protocol's branching storyline and dialogue, KoTOR II - TSL with its deconstruction of the SW universe - all of those merely had some cool writing and nothing else?

Now, they didn’t even know how to write anymore

And you're basing that on a single game (PoE).

and are desperately catering to causals in a shameless manner. Fuck them.

PoE may not be all that hardcore, but it's a long way from a casual (even with story mode) RPG.

Contrary to popular opinion, the Codex never had, and never will have, a uniform hivemind like/dislike of any game.

We don’t need universal consensus, but just some standards of taste. If the logic of “play whatever is available because we don’t have anymore games to play” becomes undisputed or common, this place will become another Kotaku in no time.

So, by "standards of taste" you're talking about your standards of taste. You don't want debate about games, you're just looking for circle-jerk validation.

How over-the-top pretentious

You can be dismissive all you want. I learned more about cRPGs with some posters and reviewers here than with all the design talks of veterans posted all over the web combined. If you think that there is nothing to learn by posting here, that is your problem.

Oh, me too. The Codex has excellent reviews. But that doesn't mean I'll automatically agree with absolutely everything said reviewer has written, I'm not here to fawn over them. Because, as already stated, the Codex is, above all, a place for debating many opposing opinions. And it shouldn't be any other way.

 

[Lurker King]

Apart from Sawyer, who is knowledgeable about games, but frequently comes across as arrogant, which other Obsidian employees do you consider to be constantly falsely portraying themselves as RPG experts?

To be knowledgeable it’s not enough to play a lot of cRPGs, you also need to analyze them to death, understand their intricacies, what work and what doesn’t, etc. Anyone that is paying attention on Sawyer’s sperging about inclusive game design know he does not have a clue about what make cRPGs tick. I don’t give a rat’s ass if he is arrogant or like to use complicated terms to look more scientific. I care about the content of his message and its consequences. The result of his design philosophy is PoE character building, an indefinite amalgam in which every build looks the same, but every causal player is happy. Of course, you could argue that they know more than just writing, but that would imply they have been purposely releasing games with superficial mechanics over the years. It makes them dishonest.

This is one of the things I love about you rabid Obsidian haters - it's not enough to criticize their games, oh no, you have to take it up to eleven and claim that even their animators and sound engineers are lazy and inept. Because why not.

Obsidian’s reputation of releasing buggy games is justified. Did you watch anyone of Avellone’s recent design talks about what studios shouldn’t do? It’s obvious that one, if not all of his criticisms are directed towards Obsidian, especially the part about releasing buggy games.

So, New Vegas with its faction system, Mask of The Betrayer with the spirit-eater mechanic, Alpha Protocol's branching storyline and dialogue, KoToR II - TSL with its deconstruction of the SW universe - all of those merely had some cool writing and nothing else?

The creative lead on F:NV was John Gonzalez – not on Obsidian anymore. The creative lead on MotB was George Ziets – not on Obsidian anymore. The lead designer on AP and Kotor II was Chris Avellone – not on Obsidian anymore. F:NV has shitty FPS engine, horrible combat system, tons of fed-ex quests that get in the way of its reactivity. MotB spirit-eater mechanic as a gameplay element is a chore and the combat system is a chore. AP protocol linear corridors with trash mobs, popamole combat system get in the way of reactivity and writing. Kotor II has popamole combat system and idiotic setting. Avellone tried his best to make it more nuanced, but the result was not that convincing. Thus, the only good thing these games have to offer is branching storyline and dialogue, but these features suffer from the other bad design decisions.

Now, they didn’t even know how to write anymore

And you're basing that on a single game (PoE)

I’m basing that on PoE, on the Tyranny updates, on their interviews which shows where they are going and how they perceive PoE as a success, etc.

So, by "standards of taste" you're talking about your standards of taste. You don't want debate about games, you're just looking for circle-jerk validation.

On the contrary, I want to debate about games, about game design and about the way some posters have misconceptions about the quality of games being released. It’s bad enough that we have tons of horrible games being released because mediocre players have bad taste. I don’t want to see their opinions being undisputed here as if was the most obvious thing in the world.

Oh, me too. The Codex has excellent reviews. But that doesn't mean I'll automatically agree with absolutely everything said reviewer has written, I'm not here to fawn over them. Because, as already stated, the Codex is, above all, a place for debating many opposing opinions. And it shouldn't be any other way.

Oh, really? I thought that the idea that you can learn on the Codex was “over-the-top pretentious”. Do you automatically agree with absolute everything your teachers said about every single topic? The Codex also has shitty posters and shitty reviews, that’s true.

 

[I ASK INANE QUESTIONS]

Like all members of the Chorus, Verse started out as a civilian in the southern continent of the Tiers – an ordinary girl on an ordinary farm. When the sun went down, she liked to sneak out to the barn and take a knife to the farm animals, and always sensed that she was destined for something more.

pshhh.....nothin.....personnel.......kid....*unsheathes spear*

Happy to see Obsidian can still deliver quality writing. Just a bit more effort, and they can give the great minds at Beamdog a run for their money.

 

[Sannom]

That was a surprisingly easy reference to find out about...

 

[Sizzle]

The result of his design philosophy is PoE character building, an indefinite amalgam in which every build looks the same, but every causal player is happy.

Seriously now, have you even played the game? And by that, I mean the v3 with both expansion packs? Because there actually are a lot of ways to make different char builds.

Or are you just parroting what the cool kids are saying about it?

This is one of the things I love about you rabid Obsidian haters - it's not enough to criticize their games, oh no, you have to take it up to eleven and claim that even their animators and sound engineers are lazy and inept. Because why not.

Obsidian’s reputation of releasing buggy games is justified.

Their several last games - Dungeon Siege III, South Park were pretty bug free. PoE had a couple of relatively big ones at launch that were quickly resolved, but it was still a lot less buggy than BG2. Far from ideal, but they are getting better.

So, New Vegas with its faction system, Mask of The Betrayer with the spirit-eater mechanic, Alpha Protocol's branching storyline and dialogue, KoToR II - TSL with its deconstruction of the SW universe - all of those merely had some cool writing and nothing else?

The creative lead on F:NV was John Gonzalez – not on Obsidian anymore. The creative lead on MotB was George Ziets – not on Obsidian anymore. The lead designer on AP and Kotor II was Chris Avellone – not on Obsidian anymore. F:NV has shitty FPS engine, horrible combat system, tons of fed-ex quests that get in the way of its reactivity. MotB spirit-eater mechanic as a gameplay element is a chore and the combat system is a chore. AP protocol linear corridors with trash mobs, popamole combat system get in the way of reactivity and writing. Kotor II has popamole combat system and idiotic setting. Avellone tried his best to make it more nuanced, but the result was not that convincing. Thus, the only good thing these games have to offer is branching storyline and dialogue, but these features suffer from the other bad design decisions.

So you're basically saying you haven't enjoyed a single one of their games. That begs the question - why do you even care what they're making now?

Will you play it, hoping/knowing you'll hate it, just so you can say you know of its shitiness first hand to score some edginess brownie points?

Now, they didn’t even know how to write anymore

And you're basing that on a single game (PoE)

I’m basing that on PoE, on the Tyranny updates, on their interviews which shows where they are going and how they perceive PoE as a success, etc.

Well, PoE was a success. Plenty of Codexers didn't like it, but it was a critical success and made enough money to warrant a sequel.

It's not the best RPG ever, but it's also far from "everything wrong with RPGs given computer game form!" like some posters are trying to paint it as.

So, by "standards of taste" you're talking about your standards of taste. You don't want debate about games, you're just looking for circle-jerk validation.

I don’t want to see their opinions being undisputed here as if was the most obvious thing in the world.

This is the Codex, no opinion goes undisputed :D

Oh, me too. The Codex has excellent reviews. But that doesn't mean I'll automatically agree with absolutely everything said reviewer has written, I'm not here to fawn over them. Because, as already stated, the Codex is, above all, a place for debating many opposing opinions. And it shouldn't be any other way.

Oh, really? I thought that the idea that you can learn on the Codex was “over-the-top pretentious”. Do you automatically agree with absolute everything your teachers said about every single topic? The Codex also has shitty posters and shitty reviews, that’s true.

When you say "Let’s say that I’m a student in a course about cRPGs. The Codex is the university and the reviewers are the teachers." you come off as someone who wants to copy the tastes and opinions of the more popular forum posters, so yeah, that does seem a bit pathetic.

 

[Lurker King]

So you're basically saying you haven't enjoyed a single one of their games. That begs the question - why do you even care what they're making now?

What I’m saying is that their best games were mixed bags because the bad things always get in the way of the good things, namely, writing and reactivity. Unless you are a storyfag desperate for cRPGs with C&C, you have no reason to play them. Besides, we know that they will never make a decent game again because the heads responsible for these games are not in Obsidian anymore and they want a wider audience.

Well, PoE was a success. Plenty of Codexers didn't like it, but it was a critical success and made enough money to warrant a sequel. (...) It's not the best RPG ever, but it's also far from "everything wrong with RPGs given computer game form!" like some posters are trying to paint it as..

That is because you are purposely hiding your head in the sand and repeating mediocre common places that are devoid of any substance and context. Since you are trying so hard to cover the obvious truth, let’s repeat this for the for the thousandth time: Obsidian used their reputation as old-school developers to promise a true successor to IE games, but what they delivered was an inferior and uninspired copy of BG mutated by Sawyer’s philosophy – who is also known for admitting publicly that he never enjoyed these games in the first place. PoE was a success only in the sense that FO4 was a success, i.e., if you only look at them like products for causals. That makes plenty of sense if you are a publisher wishing to make a profit, but makes no sense if you are a player. The fact is THAT OBSIDIAN APPROACH REPRESENTS EVERYTHING THAT IS WRONG WITH GAME DESIGN TODAY. They only think in terms of making a product for a dumb audience marking some checklist design boxes without any passion for what they are doing. THEY COULD BE JUST AS WELL SELLING HAMBURGERS; it makes no difference to them. Do any of them even play cRPGs anymore? I have my doubts.

When you say "Let’s say that I’m a student in a course about cRPGs. The Codex is the university and the reviewers are the teachers." you come off as someone who wants to copy the tastes and opinions of the more popular forum posters, so yeah, that does seem a bit pathetic.

The only thing that is pathetic is your lower standards. Thinking that PoE is not popamole game because Skryim is even easier shows how superficial you are.

 

[Doktor Best]

Fallout 4 was thrashed on metacritic and got a 5.9(?) userrating there. POE is at 8.4 or something, putting it slightly behind Divinity OS.

And yeah i know. Metacritic is nonsense yadda yadda yadda, but the user rating tells us that it pleased its audience pretty well in contrast to Bethesdas latest turd.

 

[Bastion]

Let’s say that I’m a student in a course about cRPGs. The Codex is the university and the reviewers are the teachers.

POE is at 8.4 or something, putting it slightly behind Divinity OS.

You're talking like D:OS wasn't rubbish.

 

[Lurker King]

Fallout 4 was thrashed on metacritic and got a 5.9(?) userrating there. POE is at 8.4 or something, putting it slightly behind Divinity OS.

Let's see:

Sales
Fallout 4 sold 1.2 million copies on Steam in its first 24 hours of release. The game also sold more digital than physical copies on day one of launch. With almost 470,000 concurrent Steam players on launch day, Fallout 4 broke Grand Theft Auto V's record for having the most concurrent online players in a Steam game not developed by Valve Corporation. The game grossed $750 million in shipped sales, with the total number of units being 12 million, also in the first 24 hours.

Accolades
Fallout 4 received numerous awards and nominations from gaming publications such as GameSpot,GamesRadar, EGM, Game Revolution, IGN, and many more. The game received a game of the year award from the 19th ceremony of the Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences —also known as D.I.C.E.—among numerous nominations for the award from The Game Awards, Telegraph, PC Gamer, IGN and more. It was also placed on various lists of the best games of 2015 in which GameSpot put it at sixth, GamesRadar at fourth, among others top lists. The game also received awards and nominations for Role-playing game of the year with it winning the award from Game Critics and D.I.C.E. with nominations from various other gaming publications.

That sounds successfull to me.

Ok, but to make the analogy more precise, the Codex course looks more like philosophy than math, because cRPGs as a subject study are too abstract and are too susceptible to speculation to ensure consensus. However, that does not mean that we don’t have more sophisticated posters here on average than in any other site. You mentioned the poll in which DO:S won. I bet that some posters that voted on this garbage have plenty to say about other topics. If even physicists can make horrible mistakes, do you think that codexers would be infallible?

 

[Excidium II]

Leave Tranny alone! Leave it alone! It might turn out ok...

Also, I get the feeling that the atmosphere in the game is more infantile comic-booky than PoE despite the "EVUL WON" shtick.
I mean, I cringed when I heard the girly voiceover of the topmodel warrior princes with the jewelry scars...

"I am a SCARLET FURY (mha moan), (pant) that should... raise some flags FOR U (big guy), it means that I am good at killing (casual) and more importantly that I enjoy it (moan)"

I dont think there is PoE character that is as phony as this one.

edit

Gee, I shouldnt have read what they have written. Even disregarding the fact that killing your own farm animals is fucking moronic and the writer is an imbecile, why make the obvious serial killer reference? Whats the point if it wont come up in the game anyway except for blips like the one above.

Like all members of the Chorus, Verse started out as a civilian in the southern continent of the Tiers – an ordinary girl on an ordinary farm. When the sun went down, she liked to sneak out to the barn and take a knife to the farm animals, and always sensed that she was destined for something more.

Jesus that VA lmao.

This looks like someone's overt fetish pnp character.

 

[Endlösung]

Chefe is back!

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[DeepOcean]

Verse started out as a civilian in the southern continent of the Tiers – an ordinary girl on an ordinary farm. When the sun went down, she liked to sneak out to the barn and take a knife to the farm animals, and always sensed that she was destined for something more.

My grandmother strangled chicken with her own hands, guess she would fit right in on the Scarlet Chorus.

 

[Excidium II]

https://www.linkedin.com/in/pkirsch

Impressive CV btw. Seems all you need to become a narrative designer @ Obsidian is apply.

 

[Darth Roxor]

What happened next was stranger still: Verse felt the deaths of her sister Furies like a part of her mind getting ripped apart, and she stumbled from battle possessing knowledge of the battle stances and weapon acuity of her sister Furies – an unintended, almost parasitic reflex that fascinated and disgusted her.

who the fuck writes this

 

[Excidium II]

What happened next was stranger still: Verse felt the deaths of her sister Furies like a part of her mind getting ripped apart, and she stumbled from battle possessing knowledge of the battle stances and weapon acuity of her sister Furies – an unintended, almost parasitic reflex that fascinated and disgusted her.

who the fuck writes this

People with a MA in "Popular Fiction"

 

[Ninjerk]

Why do all of their companions have some scars on their faces?

Leave Tranny alone! Leave it alone! It might turn out ok...

Also, I get the feeling that the atmosphere in the game is more infantile comic-booky than PoE despite the "EVUL WON" shtick.
I mean, I cringed when I heard the girly voiceover of the topmodel warrior princes with the jewelry scars...

"I am a SCARLET FURY (mha moan), (pant) that should... raise some flags FOR U (big guy), it means that I am good at killing (casual) and more importantly that I enjoy it (moan)"

I dont think there is PoE character that is as phony as this one.

edit

Gee, I shouldnt have read what they have written. Even disregarding the fact that killing your own farm animals is fucking moronic and the writer is an imbecile, why make the obvious serial killer reference? Whats the point if it wont come up in the game anyway except for blips like the one above.

This character is personified.

I also like that someone earned a Butthurt x 1 from Crooked Bee.

 

[Duraframe300]

https://www.linkedin.com/in/pkirsch

Impressive CV btw. Seems all you need to become a narrative designer @ Obsidian is apply.

IIRC correctly he took part in the *contest* that lead to Carrie Patel's hiring. He didn't make it, but was asked to do the manual/world almanac.

 

[DeepOcean]

Bad ass warrior chick that is agile and edgy... check.
Ambitious woman that likes being promoted on the ranks... check.
She is a psycho but she suddenly cares her sisters died... check.
Can learn in matter of minutes what silly warriors take years to practice... check.
Have badly explained powers, sorta of animu powers... check.

Man, for an world where libruls won, this is looking pretty stock fantasy.

 

[Infinitron]

I like these companion updates. They're like an experiment in how much spontaneous griping the Codex can generate over something completely harmless and non-noteworthy.

 

[Excidium II]

I like these companion updates. They're like an experiment in how much spontaneous griping the Codex can generate over something completely harmless and non-noteworthy.

We're just mocking how cringeworthy it all is on those updates. This is a company that made a reputation for good writing after all.

 

[Sannom]

I like these companion updates. They're like an experiment in how much spontaneous griping the Codex can generate over something completely harmless and non-noteworthy.

I don't remember the topic about Barik being that bad . Granted, it didn't have audio when it first came out, but still.

We're just mocking how cringeworthy it all is on those updates. This is a company that made a reputation for good writing after all.

And it will be good in the final game. Not that I find it horrible here, mind you.

Right now, some people on tumblr and twitter are going gaga over her looks. That will be enough to generate some hype.