Big-Ben

I like customizable HUD elements and if Obsidian can include them I think they should. As for designing AROUND their absence I'm not so sure. Way back when when games were cheaper to make I would have imagine this would have been easier to do but now I'm not sure if it's worth the time and effot. The cost of making say, Morrowind was NOT the same as it was for Skyrim. And yes I'm well aware of Bethesda removing more and more elements with each subsequent release but throw me a bone here. For the real MLG Galaxy Brain Pros though you should just play the game with your monitor or TV off. Or with beer goggles!

Actually no he's right. The stuff Bioware does for instance costs A LOT of money. Like more than you can possibly imagine. I'd much rather have that spent on core gameplay if the money is tight. Approval ratings are not the same. It's way easier to do "You're a good leader" than it is to do "MAYBE I wanna bang you if you follow these 2397842893472934 steps".

Very good post! I'm hoping for weirder stuff piled on to the expected weird stuff.

I cannot believe that Obsidian being who they are won't be acutely aware of the PC market and all the basic trimmings people are accustomed to. I'd imagine they'll be putting in things like an FOV slider/option as well. Quicksave is a staple I fully expect it to be included. The announcement here was just preliminary and I expect more details (Obviously) down the line. Obsidian has great Twitch streams too and I'm sure they'll address stuff there too!

The hubs in Deus Ex were designed for that tailored experience so I imagine this game will be much larger (Not too large though.). I get what you're saying though. A specifically designed type of hub. Speaking for myself though I actually prefer smaller, more meaningful hubs because quite often if traversal isn't fun travelling in open world games is the world can be the worst part. As long as it's got that good old Obsidian stuff I'm down.

Where has he ever said that? He has stated he doesn't play games, but that doesn't equate to him hating them. To add to this he literally let Overkill license his image for Payday 2 and he also voices said character, a biker named Rust. Surely if he hates game he wouldn't do that?

I love Ron and I'm sure he'd do it if asked. Also, if Obsidian is going for a real one-two "Haha Bethesda" approach he might be a worthwhile acquisition just from a ribbing on Bethesda standpoint.

An adjustable FOV slider should theoretically alleviate this. Considering this is unfortunately not a thing on a lot of these games I understand the frustration. A game with a console FOV like 60 or something is bound to cause problems. Widening that up to ninety or even one hundred should help significantly.

Wait, Bethesda once owned it ? No but it's a spiritual successor to a series Bethesda now owns. Obsidian won't be bound by insane time demands, release dates or Pay bonuses tied to Metacritic.

This ideally should fix a lot of the motion sickness people have. The cramped viewing causes the discomfort. Widening the FOV should fix SOME people's problems.

The only loving you need is that this game has been liberated from Bethesda.

the Watcher's story DID end, at the final ending slide I'd be remiss if I didn't think Obsidian will do one final game with The Watcher. I base this one the fact that humans have an obsession with the number three.

The intent behind the criticism and the site itself is what is drawing the ire. Again RPGCodex isn't known for being mature but rather the opposite. It's certainly true that there's criticism there but it's compounded by the reality that you have to sift through trash to achieve any sort of discernible and concrete critical analysis. The review is also not satirical and is instead inundated with unnecessary and occasionally hostile verbiage. One most certainly isn't going to sift through a pile of trash to find gold and take both the garbage and the gold. And speaking strictly from an incentive point of view no developer is going to wade into a pool of people who won't be happy regardless of what they do. People on that site seem far more entrenched with the idea that games should not deviate from what they remember from twenty years ago. That, more than anything makes me think they're far less interested in enjoying themselves with any new product than they are attempting to rekindle past nostalgia and bias ridden memories by attacking things that deviate from some deified format.

This is essentially what I wanted to say but lacked the courage to do. I mean what does being gay have to do with the narrative? Surely they've played other Obsidian games that ALSO have gay characters right? I mean come on.

Did anyone forget the gnome Tiax who thought he was meant to rule over all and and HIS lines? Xzar? Montaron? Hell Imoen was a last minute addition created via lines made from another character. I just recently replayed Baldur's Gate and the character lines are not high art folks. Xoti talking about poop is no different.

I was under the impression that RPGCodex hated everything. Reading through that website it's like something threw all their trash into a website, defecated on it and lit it on fire.

From my experience companion banter is almost always this way. In games like Baldur's Gate a man spends a good deal of time talking about how great his hamster is because he's so diminished from repeated blows to the head. There's no deep humanistic insight there just some poor guy who has brain damage. Misnc is awesome but to say he's never cheesy is a downright lie. There's also this reality. People complained about dead babies and now you have Xoti talking about poop. Levity achieved!

I think this would be an interesting time period to explore in a spin off. I mean every yayhoo having power could be very interesting from a role playing perspective. I don't know if you'd want to tie the creation of the "Actual" Gods in there though because it's canon they were created. Maybe a plot surrounding the machinations behind the motive to create them though?

Bilbo is really thirsting after Ydwin your profile pic. As an aside I was under the impression that adding in companions after the fact can be a bit of minefield. What I mean, specifically is that Ydwin doesn't have all the tie ins that all the other actual companions do. Flags etc and by upgrading Ydwin to a full companion you'd have to do a ton of work to do. Unless a forum member wants to be a wealthy donor I don't see how that's at all feasible. I may be mistaken (That is to say misremembering.) but I recall a Bioware dev some years ago discussing that it was actually impossible in some instances to implement new companions who weren't already in a batch of code. Something about functionality with variables and the like. But I'm not sure if that was something inherent in Mass Effect's engine (Unreal) or if it was a complex coding issue. I won't claim any authority over this subject it's just a tidbit that's bubbled to the top of my accursed brain. I don't have any clue if Unity functions differently!

I never really understand the rational that people who dislike certain games have when confronted with the evidence that a game is doing just fine. I mean even a game like Mass Effect 3 which still causes certain groups to hiss audibly when mentioned sold well. Pillars for all intents and purposes from what I understand is doing just fine. Smaller numbers for independent games doesn't mean the game has failed. Surely no one here thought Pillars failed because it didn't sell millions of copies like GTA V right? It works the same for books too. Not everything has to be "Insert Popular Series Here", Same with movies. TV shows etc etc. Mind boggling.

It's the secret romanceable items DLC you all asked for. You'll be shocked with what can be done with that helmet!

I ask this with sincerity but do you play many video games? You cannot possibly think this when there's copious amounts of other games out there with far, far worse plots. I like hyperbole as much as the next guy but worst story ever? When nonsensical shooters and silly art games exist? I mean I didn't like the Pillars 2 story as much as the first one either but not in my wildest dreams would I call it bad or even remotely the worst I've ever seen/experienced. What do you consider a GOOD story? And no cheating by saying something like Planscape Torment!

Well, it seems almost everyone in Eora wants to do "the right thing". Even Thaos thought he was doing "the right thing". Yes, everyone wants it. They would be a bunch of bffs, except for the fact that each person has a different definition of "the right thing". This. A lot of really awful people believe they're doing the right thing and that's common both in game and in the real world. And in those stories they're the hero. I won't shoot specific politics into the forum but it's safe to say we've had people who thought they were "heroes" on every political plane imaginable. Obsidian has always tried, at least in my mind to have their characters try and justify their behavior which is something the average video game villain doesn't do. Take Caesar in New Vegas for instance. I find him repulsive but at least he explains why he does the things he does. That's a far cry from the mustachioed villains of the past. Is moral nuance always necessary? Not really. I doubt many people play Zelda games because they want a Heart of Darkness experience. Killing Ganon because he wants to rule the world is enough motivation for me but then again Zelda really isn't out to pose moral questions.

I think it should be specified that Eder doesn't like abject cruelty as he has no problem wolfing down dead meat from anything (Even kith!). It's a fairly common aspect of farm/country life. You understand that life must be taken so the rest can endure (The farm, village etc.) but wanton cruelty and killing of animals is a no go. It's a remarkably accurate depiction of a farm boy that's for sure.

It depends. Bioware revealed that companion questions and romances cost way, way more than most people anticipated (Millions) and certainly far more than Obsidian had in terms of budget. Part of the reason single player games without micro-transactions are rarer nowadays is that it costs a lot of money to make a game. As much as I detest the process I understand why they do it. As much as I loathe to admit it the process does work and it offsets the production costs. Smaller studios have smaller budgets and people need to take that into account. Not every studio has Rockstar money. They cannot afford several hundred million dollar budgets and a year long delay. In another example one immediately notices that special effects in smaller budget films tend to look worse than whatever Disney/Marvel/Lucasfilm shoot out because they don't have the money. People need to understand that it's just not possible to have everything gold plated. It's not that Obsidian doesn't want to it's that it's not possible to do so.