Tigranes

Xard has it right, really. An MMO would mean a dramatic change in the team scale/organisation for Obsidian, and it's not something they will be able to do unless they draw their rolling projects program to a close. So, I wouldn't predict it happening anytime before 2010 or 11.

Straight out of school into an AAA title is it? Can't be that bad. When do you start work, then? I assume pretty soon?

No need to flame people. It is not the easiest of things to read up on decade-long histories of Obsidianite employees. For most people I think BIS and Bioware were both associated with BG, IWD, PS:T - especially since all 3 shared the same engine.

So I was thinking about having a little blog/article-type site for a while - nothing so formal or polished as, say, Winterwind (see Gorth's sig), but somewhere I can put my thoughts up. As my postgrad work on media studies now requires a research blog of some sort, I thought I might as well get something off the ground. Alley of Infinite Angles (No, I'm not good with names) will be both a personal blog and a research blog - I'll mainly talk about the world of games as a field (industry, marketing, fans, communities, etc), but occasionally other stuff as well. Sometimes rather academic-ish, sometimes not, but usually similar to the tone of my posts here, I think. Nothing big, but nothing small, either. The main topic I will discuss is how different people see and get impressions of the industry and video games - e.g. companies thinking gamers like big boobs and violence; non-gamers thinking gamers are/aren't basement nerds; gamers thinking companies don't/do care about them; etc. Note that the CSS is totally rubbish, if anything doesn't work yell at me. Comments and reads aren't really necessary for the uni side of things, but I wanted to share it with you guys, as I'm sure you'll have very valuable critique and thought some of you might find it interesting. And as it says on 'About', I'd love to talk about your views on the industry if anybody is interested - I know we have people from all sorts of backgrounds here. A-yup.

Oh, definitely. It's a bad term. As I said, I don't quite mean that... but thats not your fault. I'll leave it until I can describe it in less confusing terms. And since that already presumes we have a primary focus on modern gunplay, yep, sounds fine. I do wish we had a bigger focus on not necessarily melee, but acrobatics. Like, I would hope that Thorton has more than just your 'stock' animations, but more variations on things like rolling, jumping over railings - and opening doors quickly as opposed to your standard CRPG "animation comes to a halt as you stand still, the door opens as you raise one arm roughly to the area of the knob".

Heh. Sounds pretty true then. Shows how much of a 'hardcore player' I am though, what with all the lag on my old computer I probably wouldn't notice. Anyway, it seems like the AI is a bigger stumbling block than I might have made it sound: and in that case I fully agree with you. I give kudos to Obsidian for making the Aurora/Electron engine do as much as it has to make party gameplay enjoyable, but there is indeed still a long way to go. Now I didn't mind *too* much since I puppet-moded everything from Day One, but when I did try the AI well, uh. Yeah. Definitely hope that we see some AI improvements in SoZ, and I think we will.

I can't substantiate it either since it's been a long while since I played, and I myself definitely remember FF being on (and liking it). Honestly? I think if true, it's a very bad move - and you probably agree that hte toggle was the best idea. FF does irritate me sometimes and I can see why some people do want it off. That's cool. But we already know this. We're all happy if the solution is just a toggle. We're not when the decision is more universal and implicit (like the general AI or immunity/resistance schema). In such cases, I'm afraid I would have to argue on the side of tactical challenge for the most part. Now yes, I do like tactical challenge. A lot. I love this element. But if you can forget about that for a mo, I think my point can stand separate of that. Basically, as we have already discussed, the kind of CRPGs Obz/BIS/Bio/etc make have always had an element of tactical challenge (or at least, tactical gameplay) as an important part of what makes those games. Even if you and others by and large ignored this (which is fine). I don't think theres any reason for them to suddenly abandon this part of their games, as long as a sizable constituency exists which appreciates that element - and I think many people do. Perhaps not to the extent that MC does. Perhaps they play on easier difficulties, cheat, don't do as well, whatever. But I think a lot of people buy these games and appreciate the kind of tactical gameplay on offer.... and thats what these people want to make and have always made. So when push comes to shove, I'm neither surprised nor irritated to see them make decisions on the side of tactical gameplay and challenge. If me & you disagree, I rather suspect it's the question of degrees - i.e. you (I think?) suggest that elements such as FF and SE-Resting Combo are welcomed by none but the most hardcore of D&D fans, while I would suggest that they are part of the bread-and-butter of Obsidian and this is expected by many buyers. And we can't forget the additional complication of bad AI and control schemes that are the result of tacking on a full Party to an engine that didn't do it before - if the AI-controlled mages were a lot more sensible I'm sure you'd have been a lot happier?

I think everyone has had enough, guys. If you believe another poster to be of a certain attitude, I strongly encourage you to act more prudently and assume the best of them. While I know some of us are more inclined to call 'em as we see 'em, I would hope that none of us are so literally 'dense' as to not realise theres a time and place for everything. If you have further grievances, PM me or any mod instead. And ask yourself if you really can't just let it be. That applies to everyone. Now, about that sex I hear, eh. I can't help but wonder whether, like the 3-JBs comparison that was very prominent only a few months ago, this emphasis on shag-em-all might be retuned as the PR campaign progresses. It all depends on the kind of feedback of course, but I can quite easily imagine people thinking that it seems rather excessive (even if it is, or isn't, or is wonderful, in-game). Personally, I wouldn't mind too much, but I am worried about any game that contributes to this kind of sexualisation of the medium. I don't mean in the sense of sex=bad, and I dont' mean that games weren't as sexual as the rest of our culture before... rather I mean the trend where sex and shag-em-all is used as a tool to hype your game, and it works; and for the sake of seemingly valid arguments such as realism and player freedom, it works itself into every RPG. I won't go into a big rant at the moment (yeah, you're so disappointed) but I can't see it being a positive thing. A-yup, I'm being negative, quelle surprise. But I do admit that I don't think I can draw a clear picture of the feature from the original article, and all of the above is provisional (and slightly panicky).

Yep. TES classes aren't classes at all, they're things like... those pre-built Skill selecitons you have in the NWN series. You will note that with TES, choosing a class doesn't make certain skills or proficiencies inaccessible. All 21 of them and all usermade ones can sneak and bow and magic and whatever however they want. So it is in fact a similar system to Fallout to begin with - though with the important distinction that in TES you learn by doing, and in Fallout you learn by levelling. Anyway, the point is that it wasnt really a big jump. Still really waiting to see dialogues and quests. It might change so much of what we think about the game (or so little).

Wasn't that really the issue with crap AI that acted as if friendly fire was off, not the fact that friendly fire was there in the first place?

Let's be fair. Your statement that "If the hardcore "permanent death, no rest, friendly fire so your mages become equal-opportunity killers, turn it from an RPG to a tactical combat game..." strongly implies that the kind of tactical considerations being discussed (mage resource management, etc) are a foreign element to CRPGs, and they benefit nobody but a minority of hardcores. Monte Carlo ("Tactics are and always have been a vital part of CRPGs.") is saying basically the same kind of thing, but from the opposite angle - that on the contrary, such tactical considerations hvae always been a part, has a place, and optimally, he "wish[es] it was an option you could switch on and off". I wouldn't say there's anything offensive or narrow-minded about that. Yeah, okay, Gromnir is Gromnir and personally I think his use of charged words were careless and unnecessary. But take away the silly-sting, and isn't "Di is pretty much immune to any "balance" or "challenge" argument." a fair (and inoffensive) assessment? You're not looking for a 'realistically' balanced tactical change, and in fact, you believe it to benefit only a small minority. There's nothing wrong with that, just like there's nothing wrong with certain folks here being very vocal about what they want in a game. It wouldn't help the industry for either party to lay down and give in. Anyway, difficulty's a hard thing to get spot on. I find post-KOTOR CRPGs very easy for the most part, so it's hard for me to imagine where the challenge lies - makes it hard for me to try and understand. But I really have to agree with MC here, and vote for the IE method of difficulty. Drop it all the way down to easy, and your mages won't friendly fire anyone: you'll generally be able to fight at a more relaxed pace because it is more forgiving: if you want to just win quickly and move on, you can. As you crank it up more tactical considerations come into play. I'd say RPGs and strat games are actually the most flexible in this regard, because with say, a platformer, if you can't make a jump, you can't make that jump, and you're going to sit there pulling your hair out until you can. When everything is just numbers and dice rolls you can take out things like friendly fire, resistances, decrease save rolls, etc. Rest? Yeah, okay, thats a bit different. I think it wasn't quite so much MOTB's new resting system as the fact that it was connected to the Spirit Meter - you could still rest quite often, but then you'd need to go eat something up. I'd agree that you can't really deny the Spirit Meter & the interconnected mechanisms were quite restrictive in the kind of playing style it forced. But I wouldn't see that in terms of a casual-hardcore scale at all. It was just a different game. Let's just get away from silly casual vs. hardcore, What-is-RPG arguments. MOTB is a video game. It is a video game which offers a specific kind of gameplay. If you want to rest a lot and have your mages firing without having to bother with the Spirit Meter so much, I would suggest that that is a problem with the playing experience offered, not the fact that it's made too 'hardcore'. You didn't enjoy MOTB as much as you might have because you didn't want to play the game it was, you wanted to play NWN2 with the new story. That's like me trying to play GTAIV as a slow, twitch-hater, of course it's going to make things hard and awkward. The only caveat would be that MOTB was an expansion pack, so it was fair of you to expect to be able to play the same kind of game as the original. But personally, I like the fact that Obsidian sees each xpack as really an original game on a smaller scale, because you can't always get the same kind of new gameplay features when you are having to develop a game from the ground up. I think it's a nice thing to do, even if I may not agree with the new experience offered. This post is way too confusing. Ai-ya.

I don't really think it's a big deal to make perks 1 per level. It probably means that they are now not as significant as before (or the game is simply easier, I'm thinking both), but it's not necessarily a bad move. What is silly and ignorant is how they merged perks and traits. Again, thatm ove itself isn't a problem: but they reasoned that they couldn't really see why they needed to be separate. Maybe because traits often have both positive AND negative bonuses, whereas perks dont? Maybe because for balance reasons, traits allows you to design bonuses that might be OP or exploitative when taken cumulatively? Hrmm. I'm not really sure what your point is, because TES was effectively classless as well. Its 'classes' were about as 'classey' as Fallout's premade characters. There's not much to be optimistic or pessimistic about that, is there?

He can load it up with Army references! I have Robert Harris' Imperium (rare impulse buy because I had nothing to do that afternoon). Pretty decent, entertaining enough to finish and reasonably historically accurate (and detailed). I particularly liked the way he decided to characterise Cicero - it's very, very convincing int erms of historical evidence. Rather a sad story, in that way.

Really? I didn't know it couldn't be modified. I was wondering why the NWN series featured so few modifications to the official campaigns themselves. Definitely agree with more tactical, considered battles than a lot of drudgery, I thought MOTB did improve on NWN2OC slightly on that account so I'm hopeful.

To be fair, it does make sense to "want a company that has only made games in a certain style to make more games in that style." I think it's all about balance - the balance between 'slam dunks' and more wacky titles, the balance between your standard repertoire/style and branching out. We seem to be getting quite a different sort of game with AP, and possibly with Aliens... but we have SoZ and probably something else in the pipeline. I'd really like to see OE people make their own IP RPGs (and not go the path of Torn, TBH, etc), but I'm not too worried.

I think I read one Salvatore book a few years ago (I don't read much fantasy). The attempts at character development were laughable, but it was overall quite well written and entertaining, in terms of pacing the reader - like a good action flick. And just like a good action flick, you just needed to skip the dialogue and romance. Don't have a lot of time to read non-work related stuff at the moment. On my list is Sea of Poppies by anthropologist/author Amitav Ghosh, which should prove interesting: will also follow up on Wals' 'Islamist', should be interesting after reading Karen Armstrong's The Battle for God: A History of Fundamentalism couple years back. But uh, right now? Andrew Keen's The Cult of the Amateur: How Today's Internet is Killing Our Culture. Sounds like your standard moral panic trash, but actually quite reasonable between the covers - and I suspect quite timely for the Silicon Valley audience to whom it is addressed.

It was?

Well, I've already admitted that I'm a bit behind on MMOs. I've actually never played WoW, only seen it an action. But since I'm probably wrong already, I might as well talk more and reveal my complete ignorance. We've had combat that required quick thinking, quick reactions, tactical management, etc, as early as Diablo 2 (and earlier? I wouldn't know). Even if the barbarian could sit there and attack people by just spam-clicking on them. It wasn't my intent to suggest that the current model is mind-numbingly boring and unthinking crap (I wouldn't know), actually. I was sort of advocating a specific kind of complexity and tactics, if you know what I mean. We already have resouce management and other stuff, but we don't really have, say, more visceral forms of targeting (probably due to the problems you'd have with animation and lag), for example. You can have a monk with 50 different types of Quivering Fist and stuff, which we do in, say, Guild Wars, but I'd really like to see combo-based moves and stuff like that to simulate melee combat, than basically "Spells Disguised as Martial Abilities".

Interesting, you're probably right. Timesinks and moneysinks *are* the great techniques of MMOs. I'm not about to dismiss the whole formula they've got going right now, since I'm playing Diablo 2 at the moment, but I certainly wouldn't mind seeing more involved and complex combat. I mean, we've had 50 years of melee combat where you just click on the enemy to attack!

Every time someone announces an MMO, I think to myself, maybe they'll change the way it works this time. They do, sometimes, but usually not very much. You've still got your levelled grinding, you've still got your PVP and PVE raids, you've still got your clickfest abilities (though that, I understand, is changing). Wonder what contribution this one can make into the mix? Or are we just going to have 500 people clicking their lightsabres on stormtroopers and htiting hotkeys for Force Brouhaha?

Couldn't a stealth skill improve things like your speed when crouching/sneaking, and simulate that you make less noise and are generally less detectible (i.e. the enemy awareness stuff is decreased)? So you still sneak on your own, but it controls how likely you are to be seen, within reasonable limitations. Wouldn't be something you'd put '20' points in, I guess.

woo-ee, leave off the pseudo-ad hominems, peasants. I'm sure Cycloneman's definition will pick up some interesting games into its definition (i.e. BG&E maybe?), but looks pretty impressive. Anyway, interesting, isn't it? While I don't necessary agree with WoD (mainly because I have yet to read a full explanation of what he thinks are ME's problems), I think its sort of a logical pitfall when you go down the path of "its just opinion". Of course it is. Opinions make the world go around, and that's a fact (ha-ha!). WoD has every right to express his opinions and try and persuade others, including the developers, of it, as long as he's not obnoxious or inflexible. Kinda hard to tell if he is, since we have yet to get past the meta-debate. But then, it was probably best for him to add the famous IMO to everything he said. I don't know. Maybe I'm just raising my eyebrows at yet another meta-discussion on opinions and RPG definitions.

That sounds like liquid awesome oozing out of the bottle.

Definitely, I think I've said before that I'm treating AP like I would Thief or Deus Ex. Excited about the prospect of a fun and distinct gameplay style with a suitable story/character foil (a bit more so, as it is Obsidian), but nothing like a CRPG experience. That's not necessarily bad, Storm of Zehir shows they're not changing the company direction or anything.

Really? I really must keep better track of things. Nobody's replaced him tho, right?