Pop

Wow, they didn't pull any punches with their explanation either - basically they couldn't sustain a PC-only game focused on a European audience, and they botched a console port. Of course maybe none of that's true and the Reptoids shut them down via a secretive government agency. Maybe Grigorovich retreated to Galt's Gulch in protest of the ignorant masses not appreciating him. It's a shame, the series had a lot of sloppy and frustrating design in its first two games, but like Obsidian, GSC was getting better and better with every release. Call of Pripyat was a really great game. It was a really effective setting, if nothing else. Here's hoping the property gets picked up by somebody else. Preferably not the Metro 2033 guys. I'd hate for the setting to be wasted on interactive films.

Could we have Computer & Console's subheading changed to this? Not because it's right or anything, but because it sums up the forum so well

So this is the project Matt was lead on, eh? He's a sharp, witty guy. It's a good project for him, if personality has anything to do with anything (it has to do with everything). He probably thinks it's an awesome opportunity.

Well if Avellone's on the project he'll have ample opportunity to do what he loves - call attention to elements of RPG design that annoy him.

I'm sure he's crying himself to sleep every night wondering what went wrong. There are also at least two other projects in the pipeline.

Who's all on the team, then? Is that information we can get at this point?

Ah man, it was funny to see the nerdrage with the no PC error. Now I remember why I left. Anyway, from what's written it doesn't really seem like a Wheel of Time deal. Obsidz designs and the SP bros write? That's about what you'd need for the game to stay tonally consistent, given how much SP is an "auteur" sort of property. I don't really live in a reality where Obsidian is some sort of pure child figure, either, so I'm not really disappointed or horrified by Obsidz' decision. I don't even think it's one they made out of desperation. There's something in this for them, obviously. And more than they're a cred / fun delivery system for their hardcore fanbase they're a company full of people who need to eat. So good on them for making such a high-profile deal. Also Mustang, you never saw the "**** is just a funny word" episode?

In any case, leaving after 7 1/2 years, which is nearly the length of the company's entire life, either speaks to one hell of a job offer, or trouble for Obsidian that extends well beyond a talented developer jumping ship.

Dunno over what time period that review took place, but from various sources the goalpost-moving thing describes Alpha Protocol's development to a T. Hope they can avoid that kind of wrangling in the future!

Jesus, how many plates is Obsidz spinning right now? Is MacLean replacing someone else? Not that I'm complaining, mind. Matt deserves it. And his ideas around the design of Alpha Protocol were really, really exciting. Hopefully he brings some of that vision to whatever it is he's working on.

Finally, a chance to take my Pandaman monk out of Progress Quest and into a real AAA game

Another thing from earlier on CA's twitter - Turns out, contrary to Internet, SEGA owns the rights to AP, not Obsidian.

Wild Wasteland end slide surprise: Anyway, It was nice to see Lady Legion-specific dialog!

So hey, about that. (I really have to give Ferg and co a hell of a lot of credit because they've kept this company afloat in spite of the typical indie-via-major game development milieu as outlined by that article) For those interested, a leaked version of the script (possibly outdated at this point, so take with salt) made the rounds a few months ago. It's a prequel, apparently, so as to avoid the whole "opiate-and-meth-driven cyborg" angle and make the agents real characters with thoughts and feelings. Your character's parents are murdered and you are subsequently drafted as a corporate hatchet man. It's not certain at all whether you will discover that your employers are behind their murder, and it's certainly unclear whether or not at some point you will take up the mantle of hero-liberator to take on your corrupt corporate overlords. Also there is a female character who may or may not fall in love with you. I gave some thoughts in the Now Playing thread. Long as you don't mind truly horrific QA (and why would you?) then it's a pretty fun game, especially for splattercore horror enthusiasts. Some really bad design peppered throughout (shades of Arcanum), but fun. As for its RPGness, as has been said, you've got a whole boatload of fetch quests and a level system / skill tree that nets you passive bonuses and short-lived, not-terribly-useful rage abilities (ala the tank in Borderlands). Basically it's great if you just want to **** around and brain zombies all day but otherwise it's as bland as ARPGs come.

yeah Goddamnit I've been on this forum for 5 years.

By the by if you're in Europe and are considering buying Dead Island retail, reconsider. Apparently the publisher shipped off an untold number of region-locked units without telling anyone (seriously). Get it digitally or else your copy may very well be bricked. I'm not hearing encouraging things about refunds either. That's on top of the Steam release initially being a QA bugfixing version, complete with (broken) cut content. I wager we'll be at Dead Island 3 before anyone involved in the series gains a modicum of competence. Never change, Deep Silver. There are also a lot of community bugfixes but most of them run the risk of pissing off VAC and getting you kicked from Steam (both for DI and possibly TF2 as well). Check the Steam forum if you need to.

Dead Island. The rapper character's single is actually in the game files and clearly cost about ten times as much as the QA budget. It's pretty much Arcanum all over again - a big ball of terrible design with even worse QA that is fun in spite of itself. Terrible character design, terrible skill design, sluggish analog combat gimmick, unstoppable VOIP, a wonderful panoply of game-breaking bugs (slip-n-slide staircases! Random, inexplicable saxophone music playing over voice chat!)

The sentence fragment thing is more or less lifted straight from Rorschach. Laborious to read, harder to listen to.

Given MCA's recent comments about downloadable games being much more flexible than retail in terms of creative and time restraints, I'm interested in seeing what they've got (if it's 2D you can bet on it being a Live Arcade-style game).

I don't really think that's the case, to be honest.

Also worth posting: That last one has scuttled a lot of peoples' pacifist runs (almost as many as the prologue), in a particular high-stress scene especially. Basically any time an enemy goes from alive (including unconscious) to dead in your level, the game squashes your run. Post-knockout executions and high drops obviously count. So do turret dominations and police interventions. Less predictable, however, are ragdoll glitches (sometimes NPCs will randomly die when being dragged) and tranq rifle headshots, which will sometimes cause enough damage to kill an enemy. I've heard the last one doesn't actually count, however.

If you're referring to Shanghai, quite a bit. It goes Detroit -> Shanghai -> Montreal -> Detroit -> Shanghai -> ??? (That's where I'm at)

Also included in this perfect game would be fixes to the numerous bugs that sabotage no-kill runs. Though they can keep the tutorial level in the running, just to make it hardcore.

So here's a thing that might not have been mentioned yet: If you have a conversation in which you have to do convincing / can use the socializing aug, and then reload the game to retry the conversation, the game will load alternate line readings that differ in order and phrasing. That's what people are saying, anywy. I've had one experience that bears this out (I thought I was just tired and mishearing things, but I definitely chose the same option twice and the sequence was definitely different). That's pretty cool, guess maybe they got to use multiple line readings? I've also heard that in order to scuttle savescumming attempts, the optimal path through a conversation can change with reloads as well. That seems dubious to me, but if it's true it's ****ing cool. Games tend to get savaged on this forum but I think if you took AP's convo system and integrated it into DX:HR you could have something damn near close to a perfect game. I don't say that lightly.