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RingMachine

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Everything posted by RingMachine

  1. Not really. The majority of the people there don't care enough about Obsidian these days for that to happen.
  2. If Tim Cain and Chris Avellone can't then nothing will.
  3. Boyarsky joining Obsidian is great, but I'm pretty sure none of the Bloodlines writers are there. It won't be the same without them. (In fact, I think I'd prefer a WoD game from inXile, with George Ziets as the creative lead.)
  4. According to Davis, Matt MacLean is either the lead writer or a senior writer on Tyranny (Davis said he wasn't sure, since he's working on Armored Warfare). This explains why MacLean didn't contribute any writing to the Pillars expansions.
  5. The guys at Obsidian probably deserve it tbh the more chrisA posts such stuff, the more he yields whatever moral high ground he mighta' once held a claim to. the twitter and interview sniping that chrisA indulges in, knowing full well that obsidian has not and will not respond, is getting extreme old. am actual curious why, given the 'mount o' time that has elapsed since his obsidian departure, some folks keep posting chrisA's one-sided slappy fight with his former colleagues. HA! Good Fun! You know what I like about Avellone compared to other Obsidian devs? His honesty. He's never afraid to say what he thinks. It was fun back when he was still there and posted a bunch of behind the scenes stuff (like the Metacritic bonus, which was a smart move from him that had improved Obsidian's reputation incredibly).
  6. The guys at Obsidian probably deserve it tbh
  7. If Obsidian's writers had more control on SP then we would have probably seen some more narrative reactivity and less banal fetch quests. Anyway, what I said about Ziets caused me to look over an interview he did a while back last year: http://grimuar.pl/interview/george-ziets Reading this is so ****ing depressing. At least he's working on a project he's passionate about now.
  8. You're right, New Vegas is the most disastrous game release Obsidian ever did because they didn't get any royalties nor a bonus for it. Just imagine where the company would be today if they did get royalties for it. P.S: you can thank Avellone for letting us know about that Metacritic thing. Don't have a Codex account. Seriously. And the thing Fenstermaker said is a statement from Obsidian, not 'Codex content' or whatever you call it. As for your pre-edit comment: it's called 'reading between the lines'. I guess you're just not used to hearing these criticisms outside the Codex. That doesn't change the fact that the small amount of rights Avellone had as a co-owner was ridiculous. Someone with his title should have a say on what they're working. "Just well enough" is practically the lowest bar Obsidian could've set. Feargus should've negotiated better terms so the writing team at Obsidian could've been more involved. It's ridiculous they only had one in-house writer on the game when their writing staff was the strongest aspect of Obsidian. (The UI artists seem to be the strongest side of the company nowadays.) The quest structure and C&C is basically the same as Skyrim btw. Literally who wants a Pathfinder cRPG from Obsidian? DS3, Pillars, and Tyranny are already more than enough generic fantasy. Too bad for Ziets that DS3 is one of the very few projects where Obsidian didn't have complete control over the story and writing. It must've been hell for him being so artistically constrained for years when he was working on it. I know, I already said this in one of my earlier posts in this thread. This all goes back to one of my original points about how Obsidian played its cards badly over the years and are now paying the price for it. I would've preferred for Obsidian to die in 2012 than go on like this. Avellone isn't even necessarily my favorite writer. I thought Bloodlines and MotB were both better written than any of his games. Anyway, here's a fun picture of Feargus from 2011 that I'm posting here just 'cause.
  9. "But you also said Avellone "Apparently, Avellone's title as 'chief creative officer' didn't mean much in the grand scheme of things over at Obsidian." So which one is it? He had a huge impact on the writing at Obsidian or he didn't?" It's a combination of both. He couldn't decide which games they would make or which settings they worked on. For example, Feargus and Jones are the ones who came up with the idea of a Spy RPG, and apparently he had no say on whether they would work on Aliens. On the other hand, he's responsible for a lot of Obsidian's best writing, as you probably already know. KotOR2, Kaelyn, Old World Blues, Durance and the like. Avellone's also the one who interviewed Ziets for his job at Obsidian, coincidentally. "Safe games? Really? They've released... one game. One game of their own and it's the end of the world apparently that PoE didn't fit your or RPGCodex's criteria of a mature themed game. Their previous game South Park for example was in no way safe when it comes writing, and yes I know, it comes with the IP. This whole rant is basically over PoE and it's writing, I would understand if they had released Tyranny and you didn't like it either, but going on and on over one game is pretty pointless to me." These are Obsidian's games in the last five years: Pillars of Eternity, Pathfinder card game, Dungeon Siege 3, and South Park. PoE isn't a mature themed game. (Seriously, some of the descriptive text reads like a bad fanfiction writer tried to copy Planescape and utterly failed. Eric Fenstermaker himself even admitted some of the writing is plain bad.) South Park is the definition of safe, not for its writing, but for basically being a clone of Skyrim. The other two don't even need an explanation. "It's pretty much obvious why they wanted to try to something "safe" with PoE and it's Kickstarter campaign. Doesn't mean they will just make that same game over and over again for eternity." No, I don't think it's obvious. I'm pretty sure they didn't want to disappoint their backers. (Or maybe they did considering all the talk from Sawyer about how he hates Baldur's Gate.)
  10. Everything points to him being a bad director, so I'm not sure what more you want me to say. By the way, Mitsoda isn't the only one that left when MCA took over. Holmes, the first lead designer, did too, which implies the mess had to do with the project as a whole and not just with Mitsoda's script as you two seem to think. I already addressed this point about the owners in my very first post about this subject. Recap: the owners didn't contribute nearly as much to the narrative and writing aspect of Obsidian as Avellone did. Ergo, you're kidding yourself if you think this won't affect Obsidian's writing department, especially considering the studio's current policy of making their RPGs as safe as possible. You talked about the size of the Pathfinder team and I talked about the size of the AW team. You're the one that implied Pathfinder's small team size is evidence for these projects not changing anything at Obsidian. If this convo is making you this angry then you probably need to chill.
  11. Chris Parker was the project director, Raymond Holmes was the lead designer. Mitsoda was the creative lead, which means he had less say on direction and design than the two previously mentioned guys. There's also that rumor from back in 2010 about how Parker managed the project horribly. Monahan, Jones and Parker have done less for Obsidian than Feargus & Avellone and that means the former are less known than the latter. Not rocket science. I like how you mentioned Pathfinder but not the tank MMO which is Obsidian's biggest game to date. I really doubt Mitsoda's version of the script would've been humorless. He himself said that Stout's version of Steven Heck is pretty much the same as the concept Mitsoda had for him, and some of that character's lines even stayed after the re-writing. Development process has been a mess at Obsidian for the following projects: - KOTOR2 - NWN2 - AP - SP:TSoT - PoE Rumored: - Dwarfs (according to some rumors I've read on the Codex) - Aliens As for NWN2 vs AP, Avellone made his game good, Sawyer made his game passable enough for release. But to be fair, Avellone had a lot more time.
  12. Not sure what you're saying here. I just thought it was obvious the project was in a state of complete disaster before Avellone, with help from Stout and MacLean, swooped in to save it. How did you reach that conclusion? I was talking about the owners in general and the public perception of them. I know. But it wouldn't surprise me if those projects are among the reasons he left. Apparently, Avellone's title as 'chief creative officer' didn't mean much in the grand scheme of things over at Obsidian.
  13. Humor/comedy should always be included (to some degree) in every video game. Humorless games tend to be boring and bland, similarly to a certain game we all know. *cough* "While Mitsoda created the initial characters, names etc. their dialogues and tones were mostly rewritten when Mitsoda stepped down / was fired. From what I remember the game was supposed to be more serious before Avellone took over." Doesn't mean you have to downplay his contributions, Mitsoda still had a big hand in creating the game. He's the one who designed its innovative dialogue wheel after all. "Why? Obsidian is still Obsidian even though they have lost some of their writing staff. If it was a complete overhaul and Obsidian in name only, that would mean most of the owners would have left and company was bought by some Evil Corporation. Since Chris Avellone is still the only owner who has left and Feargus and rest of owners still decide which way to steer the ship, it's not a completely changed studio." Don't kid yourself, Avellone was the only owner people cared about besides Feargus. Anyway, Feargus and the other owners seem to be past their glory years considering the direction they've taken with the studio recently. Even before that, Parker already proved that he doesn't have any idea what he's doing if we're judging by the way he directed Alpha Protocol. This is factually wrong. Source: comments from the majority of people who actually played both Obsidian's other games and PoE. But hey, you're free to think that.
  14. "Tess was a producer, not a writer." But she's credited for adding writing and I was listing writers. "Fenstermaker was working fulltime on South Park as well as writing for PoE. Not that easy jumping from one project to an another." Avellone did Fallout 2 and Planescape at the same time. Just sayin'. "Which parts of F:NV did Travis Stout write? Other than AP's Steven Heck I have no idea what else he created while at Obsidian." According to Sawyer: He also did the majority of the Taiwan hub in AP. "They just had Ziets back over to work on PoE, what makes you think they won't do it again on some other project? Does Ziets even want to work fulltime at company, rather than freelancing and taking projects he finds interesting?" Ziets is working full-time at inXile. Him and McComb are pretty much the only reasons I care about that company. "Brian Mitsoda's writing was pretty much scrapped from what I recall, cba to check from rpgcodex what he and/or Annie said about it back in the day. Yes, he did come up with some of the characters but how I remember is that MCA and few others ended up rewriting most of it and since Project New Jersey (which I believe Brian was working on) was cancelled most of what Mitsoda ever wrote for Obsidian was never seen by the public. So why exactly should Obsidian fans care about Mitsoda? Bloodlines was over 10 years ago or was the writing in Dead State so good that people should still worship him? Since that's pretty much what he has done since Bloodlines, Dead State." Mitsoda created a lot of the characters in AP. And Bloodlines is one of the best-written games of all time, so it's understandable why people love him so much. And former/current Obsidian fans care about him since Troika is pretty much Obsidian's dead sibling. "And, no. You are not getting it. Just because they lost Gonzalez etc. doesn't mean there isn't a new "Gonzalez" working for the company. The company hasn't changed how they make games. Story and writing still matter in their games and therefore when ever they are recruiting new writers they are still looking for the same quality as previously. Some dev even commented here that they are looking for their writers to be even more talented (cba to find exact the quote for you from these forums) than previously. But, hey this conversation is pretty much pointless when you've already decided that no one can replace Stout, Gonzalez, Ziets, Avellone etc. So why ****ing even bother." Mind sharing examples of great studios who completely changed over the years and are still good?
  15. I'll go over the four main NV writers: - John Gonzalez (lead) - left. - Chris Avellone - left. - Eric Fenstermaker - still there, but after Pillars I don't have much faith in his writing ability. - Travis Stout - left. Now onto the people credited for additional writing who worked at Obsidian: - Tess Treadwell - left. - George Ziets - left. The area designers are mostly still working there though, including the lead. As for the Alpha Protocol writing team: - Chris Avellone - Travis Stout - Matt MacLean - Brian Mitsoda All aren't there anymore except for MacLean, who also contributed the least. You're seriously downplaying the amount of talent Obsidian lost. You saying Avellone is the only noticeable loss is pretty much not true. For example, Steven Heck, the character who's universally loved for being hilarious? Created by Mitsoda and mostly written by Stout. Mr. House? Written by Gonzalez. Okku the Bear God? Created by Ziets. And I'm not sure what you have against Mitsoda by the way. So? You're not getting it. Here's what I'm saying: If a fan has been following Obsidian because of their great writing and storytelling, there's no point in doing that anymore except if: (1) one of the older employees (like MacLean) prove to be good lead writers [extremely unlikely], or (2) if the new batch of writers at Obsidian prove to be as talented as the ones they lost [also extremely unlikely]. Obsidian have lost so many great writers over the years to the point of it being astonishing. In conclusion, the reason Obsidian is still seen as having great writers is only because of the company's name. Most all of the people who wrote on games like KotOR2, MotB, AP, and F:NV aren't there anymore. But here's the problem: most people think that with the exception of Avellone, a lot of the writers who worked on those four games are still in the company, which isn't true. If people found out that the Alpha Protocol team is pretty much gone, would they still want a sequel or spiritual successor from Obsidian? If they found out that literally only one writer from New Vegas is left (who also went on to lead the writing on PoE), would they still want another Fallout from Obsidian?
  16. Don't know about the exact specifics, but I'm pretty sure Ziets just did a bit of concepts for the gods early on in development while Carrie Patel did the writing. And when did I say they should worry about that? What? I'm having trouble following you here. You said the writing in Planescape was the thing that's hardcore about that game, and Obsidian themselves marketed PoE as having the exact type of writing. Therefore, people expected it to be "hardcore"-style (according to your definition) and were disappointed. And I'm not sidetracking. Looks like I have to repeat it again. Obsidian's design team is completely different than what it used to be. Ergo, the people who made the story and quests that fans loved from pre-PoE Obsidian are pretty much all gone. This isn't a case of just three or four noteworthy designers leaving. I guess that Sawyer, Fenstermaker, and Matt MacLean are still there, but those are pretty much the only noticeable ones.
  17. It's mostly modern day, but fantasy is obviously still a major element. IIRC, Parker and Stone basically wanted the game to be Skyrim-style, but in the South Park universe. I couldn't finish it anyway. The writing was funny, but there was only so many boring one-ending quests I could bear.
  18. On the contrary, I think making the base NWN2 game mandatory to buy for you to get MotB was probably about the worst thing they could've done. I also imagine a lot of people played MotB without knowing anything about D&D (particularly the people who got into RPGs in this decade), and what you're saying is pretty much restricted to D&D fans. I myself played MotB without any prior knowledge of that IP and still thought the conversation with Myrkul was amazing. The gods in PoE were just written badly, there's no need to make any excuses for it. Didn't say it was a bad thing, Alpha Protocol is one of my all-time favorite games. As for why they would want to work with smaller pubs? To make games that are closer to their creative vision. Thought that was pretty obvious. Not really. From the Kickstarter campaign: "Project Eternity will take the central hero, memorable companions and the epic exploration of Baldur’s Gate, add in the fun, intense combat and dungeon diving of Icewind Dale, and tie it all together with the emotional writing and mature thematic exploration of Planescape: Torment." None of this happened. The writing was average at best, the gameplay was overbalanced and simply not fun (not to mention the trash mobs), and besides Avellone's characters and maybe Eder hardly anyone cared about the companions. The exploration was ruined by the loading screens. This doesn't explain the cases of Mitsoda and Avellone leaving. Avellone recently said on Twitter that he was the creative lead on Tyranny during pre-production, and for him to leave before finishing it is strange. Similarly, Mitsoda left during the middle of being the creative lead on their first original IP. As for what he thinks about Obsidian, you just need to look at the comments he and Annie made over the years about Alpha Protocol. There was one writer that they seemed to really like, Travis Stout, but he also later left in 2011. While I agree that Tyranny will probably sell less than Pillars, I think another big reason for that would be Obsidian fantasy fatigue. Obsidian has picked up a reputation for working with a varied number of game settings, from post-apocalyptic to sci-fi to Planescape-type fantasy to modern-day-espionage. Recently, Obsidian has been mostly making fantasy or fantasy-type games (DS3, TSoT, PoE, Tyranny), and IMO people are starting to catch on.
  19. Obsidian got an offer to work on an original IP for Sega in 2006 after all. Also, Obsidian would have be able to do something like that if it wasn't for Feargus's insistence back then on working on only AAA projects. They could've snatched a deal with a smaller publisher extremely easily. Considering the hype for PoE among the hardcore audience and Obsidian's past of making complex RPGs, I think it's pretty obvious what people were expecting from it. It wasn't just a Baldur's Gate successor either, it was supposed to be a successor to all the IE games, including Planescape and Icewind Dale. There are several designers that left for somewhat suspicious reasons. Brian Mitsoda is one of the biggest examples, as I already said, not to mention Avellone, who was a co-founder and owner. I get the impression that the environment over at Obsidian is/was a bit hostile to its writers and designers, to be honest. But generally, writers don't just leave a company like Obsidian just because they want a change of scenery. Right, so you're founding a new RPG development studio in California in 2003. Whose example are you going to follow? A Swedish horror developer that didn't exist yet, that made its fortune using an indie digital distribution model that didn't exist yet? A Polish videogame publisher best known for translating Baldur's Gate to Polish, that took 5 years to develop their first game which could easily have ended up as a horrible piece of Euro-shovelware? Or are you going to follow the example of the world's RPG industry leader at the time? I think you're placing an unreasonable demand on Obsidian's strategic foresight here. I'm not really criticizing Obsidian's original plan for the company. What I'm generally talking about is how the company was managed as time moved on. They have always taken too long to adapt to changes in the industry. This applies even now: These days, unlike ten years ago, fresh and experimental games are all the rage, which Obsidian isn't doing. Look at the reactions to the Tyranny announcement: a lot of people complained about how they're playing it safe and only working on high fantasy.
  20. RingMachine, in this argumentative framework that you've built defining ambitious and non-ambitious developers, how would you classify BioWare? Because in interviews, Feargus has said that Obsidian was explicitly built to repeat what BioWare had done a few years earlier. Find a "sugar daddy" publisher similar to Brian Fargo's Interplay in the late 90s, start with licensed products (like D&D and Star Wars) and then eventually graduate to developing their own IPs. Obsidian failed at this, in part because their games missed their marks in various ways, and in part because of structural changes going on in the industry (consoles, budgets, publisher dominance, etc) that made following in BioWare's footsteps difficult. But it wasn't some outrageously unsound strategy. They were following the example of BioWare. BioWare only released two (unremarkable) original games before being bought out by EA, so it's not like their strategy worked out much better. As for ambition, I suppose the effort is there, it's just that their employees have always been largely untalented. Still, I give them a bit of credit for creating a somewhat interesting fantasy world with Dragon Age: Origins. "Yes, original NWN is associated with mediocrity, but that's hardly Obsidian's fault." I don't see why it's not Obsidian's fault when they themselves also made the mediocre sequel. "Obsidian and Feargus can't dictate to Atari in what form they will deliever Mask of the Betrayer. It's Atari who is running the show, they said expansion packs is all you are going to get and they made the most with at least one of them. Mask of the Betrayer is still a good game, whether it's called NWN2:MotB, NWN3, or just MotB. There's no way in hell, Atari was going to let them launch a new IP so it's either full on sequel or an expansion. Remember, this is the company that didn't have the balls to even greenlight Baldur's Gate 3, a game that would have basically printed money with the name alone." I know Obsidian can't tell Atari how to release MOTB. But they could've released the same game with a different publisher and with a different property. It's not like it even matters considering how different MotB is from the other NWN games. That way, the game would've gotten a lot more recognition and therefore would have vastly improved Obsidian's reputation. By the way, them not wanting to greenlight Baldur's Gate 3 says more about Obsidian than Atari. "Your CD Projekt Red still sucks though, even if people compared Witcher 3 to PoE. One of them is full on AAA game with years of development and the other one is a 5 million kickstarter game. In what world won't that AAA game overshadow the kickstarter game, unless the AAA game is being made by complete twats." That's not the end of it. TW3 overshadowed PoE across literally all audiences, including the hardcore cRPG crowd. Just take a look over at RPG Codex's GOTY awards: TW3 was #3 while Pillars barely made the top 20. "And you completely missed my point when it comes to finances, but I guess it just didn't fit into your "agenda"." 'K. Too bad the designing team at Obsidian is completely different from what it was 5-12 years ago.
  21. Heh, I like how both of you replied to only one point of my four-part post. The same point too. No. 1. "While Frictional make good games they are neither ambitious nor innovative. For ten years they have focused on and do one single genre well, from Penumbra to Amnesia to SOMA. That's a conservative strategy with the main change being that of setting. It's a successful approach and they make good games, but that doesn't make it ambitious, if anything it makes it conservative." Do you even know the meaning of the word ambition? am·bi·tion amˈbiSH(ə)n/ a strong desire to do or to achieve something, typically requiring determination and hard work.desire and determination to achieve success. an earnest desire for some type of achievement or distinction, as power, honor, fame, or wealth, and the willingness to strive for its attainment: If you knew a bit about what's going on behind the scenes at Frictional you'd know they fall under these definitions. I guess Obsidian fits under the definition of the 'wealth' part currently, and that's kinda sad. As for innovation, they've done that plenty. Examples: The engine they developed (HPL Engine), the Sanity Meter in Amnesia, and Penumbra: Overture's unique setting all fit under the definition of innovation, not to mention the narrative ideas in SOMA which were highly acclaimed. I've actually seen a lot of people over on their forums that signed up just to let the devs know how much they loved its story. Let's see what Obsidian is doing right now in comparison: 1. Bland fantasy RPG. 2. Another fantasy RPG. 3. Another fantasy game, but this time with cards. 4. A rip-off of World of Tanks. How innovative and fresh. Meanwhile, most of the other independent studios nowadays are actually doing what they love. By the way, I don't see what's wrong with focusing on horror games. How is that any different from devs that focus on RPGs? 2. "Plus, you can't really go on about the need to own your own IP and then cite CDPRed. Twitcher is owned by Andrej Sapkowski and only licensed by CDPR, and even the unreleased Cyberpunk is based on someone else's system." Why does that even matter? CDPR actually gets a ton of money from their series. On the other hand, Obsidian released the smash success Fallout: New Vegas only for it to worsen their already bad financial situation. 3. "Wanting Obsidian to do different 'better' games is fine, but you seem to be basically citing a bunch of aspirational ideas- it should be ambitious, successful, innovative, their own IP etc- rather than something more grounded and your choices of example don't match the aspirations." I'm citing examples of devs who are taking risks and are being rewarded for it. 4. "What does "Neverwinter Nights" games feel like? I always thought Mask of the Betrayer was a D&D game, not just NWN and other than the soul eating mechanism it played just like NWN 2. Who in their right mind would even want to play the OC NWN?" MotB playing like NWN2 wasn't my point. You actually nailed it with that last sentence: Neverwinter Nights is mostly associated with mediocrity. When MotB was released people were actually amazed that the "follow-up to Planescape" was put out in the form of a NWN expansion pack. 5. "Really? You are using CD Projekt Red as an example, the company that gets revenue from GOG.com as well. Why not bring up Valve as well?" I used CDPR as an example because that company is very often compared to Obsidian. Especially considering a lot of people probably noticed that The Witcher 3 completely overshadowed PoE. 6. "Also if you want to compare Obsidian to some Eastern European company you might want to consider the costs of running a business in California vs. Poland. The GDP alone is twice as high in USA than it is in Poland, not to mention rent etc. are way lower in Poland. It's far lot easier to build on that basis, when you've got money trickling from GOG.com and you can hire two workers (equally as good as their American versions) for the same money that most people get just 1 person." Which goes back to my point about how Feargus hired more people than he could carry.
  22. 1. "Important point that applies to almost every independent game developer except, say, Blizzard: because of the industry's exploitative model, every single one is perpetually on the brink of bankruptcy and closure, and they can never escape the cycle unless they happen to hit a super jackpot on a game they somehow funded without publishers (e.g. POE selling 10 million). This is because, to put it briefly, publishers pay developers just enough money to pay the bills while making the game, and then if they're lucky get a small one-time bonus for the sales. So it is always hand to mouth and even after making multiple critically acclaimed multi-million selling games, you are still broke, and the moment some publisher cancels your next game due to a "change of strategy away from PC gaming" or something, you have to lay people off and even shut your doors." That's not my point. There are plenty of independent game developers out there right now, and, while maybe not completely financially stable, are still putting out great games. Example: Frictional Games. Frictional is a company that was founded exactly 10 years ago that is putting out one ambitious game after another. While initially they had to get publishing deals for support (while also enduring the headaches associated with them), they later moved on to publish their games on their own. This resulted in two of the greatest horror games of all time, Amnesia and SOMA. Not only that, they are also built on a gorgeous 3D engine. One notable difference between these games and Obsidian's is that they're an original property which are owned by their original creators. One of Obsidian's greatest weaknesses (which also proved to be one reason of its [quality] downfall), is that they waste their best ideas on other people's IPs. (I mean, seriously, does KOTOR2 feel like a Star Wars game? Does MotB feel like a Neverwinter Nights game?) They are moving away from this with Tyranny, but unfortunately that IP seems to be owned by Paradox, which won't help Obsidian much. Another good example is CD Projekt RED. They started out with the video game version of The Witcher. Fast-forward 8 years later: They are one of the most well-loved video game studios in the world and The Witcher 3 is hailed by a huge amount of people as the best open-world RPG of all time. I could go on with a bunch of other examples, but I think you get the gist of it. My point is that Obsidian has played its cards horribly over the years. Instead of focusing on putting out fresh and original games with a small staff, Feargus and the gang decided to go all-in and hire as much personnel as they could. The result? An atrocious amount of cancelled and/or badly managed projects. To be honest, I don't think releasing great games has been Obsidian's priority for a couple of years now. They're currently focusing on getting as much money as they can. IMO, ambition should always be the #1 priority for any great video game developer. 2. "It only took one or two cancellations / failed pitches to bring the entire company to near bankruptcy - which, again, would be the case with every other company." One or two? 1. The Snow White RPG. 2. Aliens: Crucible. 3. Stormlands. 4. Baldur's Gate sequel. 5. Backspace. That's only the cancelled projects, not including the failed pitches, nor Alpha Protocol basically becoming an entirely different game (narratively) half-way through development. How so many projects can be so badly mismanaged is completely beyond me. This isn't simply a sign of an independent company struggling to get by, this is a sign of a company that doesn't have any idea what it's doing or trying to do. As a result of this, most all of the noteworthy Obsidian writers have left the company. Brian Mitsoda left because the projects he headed were either cancelled or completely re-written, and George Ziets was laid off because of the Stormlands cancellation. (By the way, this one still baffles me. I have no idea how out of all the Obsidian employees they had, they decided it would be best to lay off Ziets, who was the second most acclaimed writer at Obsidian.) 3. "The poor sales for Alpha Protocol, that means we currently have no Obsidian IP other than POE, and the cancellations / failed pitches mean that the only AAA-ish games Obsidian has produced recently have actually been smaller, safe bet projects like South Park and Dungeon Siege 3 (both of which were profitable ventures for everybody involved). And they need to do stuff like Armoured Warfare to avoid laying people off." South Park and DS3 actually started around 2009, before Obsidian really started getting into desperate maneuvers mode. And doing stuff like Armored Warfare to "avoid laying people off" is a bit too much when it is taking up literally half of your workforce. And then there's a bunch of people who are working on a goddamn tablet game. And then there's another bunch of people who are working on a westernization of a Russian MMO. Really, the overabundance of staff at Obsidian is all on Feargus's and co.'s shoulders. They're the ones who got the company into this mess. 4. "But again, that depends on Microsoft or somebody accepting such a pitch, knowing that such games sell 1-4 million and not 10, and not canceling it because their head of division just left and the new one wants to focus on mobiles and angry birds, or something." There's a problem there though. Barely any big-name publishers want to fund developers who aren't in-house nowadays. Especially not developers with Obsidian's reputation. Obsidian needs to start to learn to fend for itself. TL;DR Obsidian is a shadow of its former self and it's too late to fix it now.
  23. I'd like Obsidian to actually be innovative again, like in their 2007-2010 glory days. Unfortunately, that doesn't seem like something Feargus they would want to do right now.
  24. This is what I posted about in another thread in this forum. There is plenty of evidence in online comments that there is a Project Indiana, and that there are three new projects in the works. That is why my projection is that Indiana is PoE2, not Louisiana. 1. Vermont - Tyranny 2. Louisiana - Unannounced Kickstarter project that was hinted at last year but postponed because Obsidian didn't want to launch a new Kickstarter before the previous Kickstarter project (PoE) was fully completed. 3. Indiana - PoE 2 Did you look on Josh Sawyer's Instagram? He's working on Project Louisiana according to what he posted there and I really doubt it wouldn't be PoE2.
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