Flouride

Now that I finally finished White March and PoE, I managed to start Banner Saga. Not quite sure how I feel about the game yet though. On the other hand I like how the choices you make matter, but at the same time losing fifth level guy over a wrong choice enrages me so much.

That would be sweet. Though after Stellaris gets released there should be a flood of info as well as Paradox's PR people can devote more time on Tyranny.

How many years do we need to have been on the boards to understand that reference? He was around back in 2012 at least. Can't remember at what point he stopped posting. Probably after Kickstarter campaign?

You are only making things harder for yourself if you do not talk, one of your co-workers will take the deal we are offering in a split second!

Ruh roh, they found me! Now feel free to rat out your co-workers whom we have yet not discovered.

I would like to know what project he is working on... Too bad funcroc isn't around anymore, he would dangle from the ceiling and listen on Tim and Leonard talking and soon we would know exactly what Leonard is up to.

Excellent news! Now they only need Jason Anderson and the band is back together!

https://www.facebook.com/timothycain?fref=ts Leonard Boyarsky joined Obsidian?

Except that you are still putting in 160 hours of gaming time despite having a job and other hobbies. There are not enough games out there worth playing, especially as we get older and require more mental stimulation from software games (at least I do). I would rather play a single 80 hour epic masterpiece than 4 mediocre 20 hour video games. Well maybe for you there isn't. For me, there's a backlog of around 50 games on Steam that I own and some never ending games and some that I will go back to from time to time.

Aye, good job Justin.

Beta Protocol, WoD game, Fallout game or something completely new and exciting that isn't traditional fantasy.

The guys at Obsidian probably deserve it tbh Whatever the guys at Obsidian may deserve, there's nothing in that post that indicates he was talking about them. Exactly, he says even to this day. Meaning he constantly gets **** for his writing, but that's just part of the business. Retards gonna retard, no matter how good you are.

Since funcroc was apparently assasinated by Feargus, someone else has to pick up the slack and come up with everyone who is working on this game. Now with updates! Anthony Davis confirmed few of people working on the game (outside the few we already know of): Brian Heins - Project Director Matt Singh - Lead Producer Tim Cain - Programmer Dan Spitzley - Programmer Constant Gaw - Lead level designer Brian Menze - Lead Artist Matt MacLean - Lead/Senior Writer (NEW!) From LinkedIn: Paul Kirsch - Narrative Designer Dini McMurry - Level Designer Matthew Perez - Area Design Rose Gomez - Associate Producer (NEW!) Lindsey Laney - Artist (NEW!) Maybe: Kathryn Megan Starks - Narrative Designer on unannounced project

Even with more writers from Obsidian doesn't mean Matt & Trey would have automatically seen the light and agreed on what Obsidian wants to do with the game. There was learning curve there for Matt & Trey which they even themselves acknowledged afterwards. Had there been a 2nd Obsidian South Park, it might have ended up with more Obsidian writers.

That's why you also build trap doors and secret ways out of your lair... I mean house in case someone starts the self destruction countdown.

Well I liked that trailer for sure! For sure! Hopefully the movie manages to catch that feel/vibe of the old trilogy while looking a ****load better.

Yes, because clearly there is a game out there that no one at Codex hates/dislikes or just purely trolls about... so yeah, when half of that schizofrenic population likes the game, it's quite well. Yes, clearly Matt&Trey were just waiting to hand over their precious South Park to a bunch of computer game writers and not have any control over it at all. Matt&Trey are South Park, the reason the game works for the tv series fans is their involvement in the project. They would be handicapped from the get go if Matt's and Trey's role in the game was smaller. Pathfinder fans? There seems to be some of those around. Since we don't even know when the negotiations for the IP was started, we can't really say for sure if Obsidian had PoE and/or Tyranny even in development. For now with both PoE2 and Tyranny they are just fine when it comes to fantasy IPs. And since Paradox and Obsidian seem to be doing fine, I would not be very surprised if after Tyranny they would create a WoD game. Calling Tyranny generic at this point is well... stupid. Unless of course you again know more than the rest of us. I don't think they played their cards wrong. The change was really sudden when Microsoft decided to kill Stormlands, just as it was with Aliens. I still think Sega messed up when they cancelled that game. Colonial Marines might have looked better on paper, but at least Obsidian wanted to deliever a good game. whoever made Colonial Marines... not so much when they had their own IPs to work on. Kickstarter wasn't really a thing back then and the marketplace wasn't as indie as it is now. It was getting there, but there weren't clear indications that the games would sell well enough. Then Wasteland 2 Kickstarter happened and everyone could see there was hope for it. I also respect Feargus for not starting a 2nd campaign before PoE was even out, he could have easily done that and got millions from it as well with the right pitch.

Sawyer has been hinting at PoE2

Without knowing exactly what kinda partnership agreement Feargus & pals have, it's kinda hard to say whether or not Chris should have had a say on Aliens or not. I think working on Aliens:Crucible definately was a good idea and not every plan needs to come out of Avellone's pen/mouth. Therefore the fact that Feargus&Jones came up with Alpha Protocol doesn't really say much. It's a company, not Avellone's personal think tank. If you think about it in normal company environment, he was the creative head of the company, but when it comes to actual business decisions CEO normally decides which projects they should go after and taking the deal on Aliens is a business decision. Coming up with the story etc. is a creative decision and that's where Avellone should step in and do his magic. PoE is a mature themed game for about half of us, even at Codex. There's no universal truth about it, such as about half of Codex seemed to enjoy the game just well enough. So Feargus should have declined the offer to work on South Park? How is it even related to Skyrim, because they do a parody of some sorts of the it? Gameplay, writing etc. don't play out like they do in Skyrim though... Oh, Pathfinder again... Yes, those 5 people working on it must be really nagging at you. They had a chance to work on a IP and they took it, after all this might lead to them working on Pathfinder cRPG. Another safe choice or a wise business decision when there weren't a plentitude of IPs being offered at them? Dungeon Siege 3 was a safe bet. But then again there are reasons for it. They needed to showcase that they can deliver a bugfree came and get rid of their Bugsidian reputation. It still had some Ziets magic when it came to writing. You seem to have some weird childlike fantasy about how much power a indie company have on what games they work on. it's not like there's plenty of publishers out there looking for developers (outside of their own company) to work on cRPGs. Actually, I can't think of anyone right now. Ubisoft only does internal stuff, EA has BioWare, Take-Two hasn't released one like ever, Atari hahahaha, Microsoft decided not publish Stormlands, Activision has Blizzard, WB seems to be working with internal studios as well, Sega thing obviously didn't work out.... that doesn't leave that many companies that can put out games for Obsidian. Not at least AAA size games and as I pointed out already they've switched their games to fit smaller publishers (as proven by Tyranny) and Kickstarter/self-publishing as proven by PoE. Things don't just happen in a week, it takes time to steer that oil tanker. And by the way, they are doing a lot better than when Stormlands was cancelled. So your timing sucks in that sense. So I repeat.... this is all about PoE not fitting your criteria and Avellone leaving and you basically have no patience to wait it out and see how their next cRPGs will turn out. Fenstermaker also said that some of the writing in the game from him is bad because he was working of South Park at the time as well and that took it's toll. As I already pointed out. He never commented other peoples work on the game as you seem to imply by leaving that part out. At this point, I think nothing is obvious to you...

What? I never said Mitsoda's script was to blame. I only stated that they rewrote most of his dialogue when Avellone took over. No one knows if it was Sega, Parker, ISIS or Mitsoda&Holmes who is to blame or maybe all together for Alpha Protocol and it's difficult production. At least no one that is willing to talk about it openly. 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? 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. 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. And no, I didn't say Pathfinders small team size is evidence of things not changing at Obsidian. You brought up both Pathfinder and Armored Warfare as a possible reason for Avellone leaving.... hence I replied that the 5 odd people working on it must have been what broke the camels back. They have 4 games in development. One card game, one MMO tank game and 2x cRPGs + whatever they've got planned next. They can't get a AAA contract for a cRPG in the current market place as we've seen in the last 2-3 years. So instead of kicking out 50 people or maybe be even closing down the company, Feargus takes something else and still manages to have them working on 2 x cRPGs at the same time, just like before, but instead of them being big *** budget games, they have smaller teams working on them and they have more control over the games than previously. How is that a bad thing? Even when at their peak, they had 2 games in development + whatever they had planned next. So they changed with the industry and like I pointed out the long term plans with AW could mean more and larger games from them in the cRPG field.

You still didn't give any insight into Parker's so called follies. None. And you still didn't get my point. Whether or not Monahan and Parker are well known is irrelevant when it comes to what kinda games Obsidian will make in the future or have made in the past. None. So you bringing them to the conversation makes practically no sense at all. Feargus is and will be the face of the company alongside what ever employees they hire. So let's talk about Armored Warfare. Why is it wrong that they are doing Armored Warfare? It's not like that they making just pure tank battles, there's a story the forming up as well. Not much, but some at least. And if you can't realize why a company in brink of destruction would take such a deal, well you are even stupider than you seem to be. Not to mention in the long term if the game is succesful it would allow Obsidian to self fund their smaller cRPGs for years to come and constant work on such project allows and allowed them to keep their employees working. What a **** move from Feargus, clearly he should have fired everyone involved in the project instead.

So you don't have any insight on Parker's follies considering Alpha Protocol and it's all just things you've made up in your head. And why are you bringing the name recognition of the owners in the first place? When the whole point was that they aren't going to change how they view games just because bunch of writers left. Again, just pure ****ing bs. Unless you are Chris Avellone or the very few people he has told why he left you are just making up stuff that would fit your agenda/view of things. I could counter that by telling you maybe he just left because he got too tanned in California and wants to live in a cooler environment. That's as valid point as yours when there's no actual facts for either case. Clearly throwing few people to work on Pathfinder game was what broke that camels back.

Why don't you indulge us all with your inside knowledge about Parker and Alpha Protocol since you seem to know everything about it. So basically your rant is over Avellone leaving. I never said people care about Parker, Monahan etc. And guess what, the company already had Armored Warfare and Pathfinder in development well before Avellone left. I can't be bothered explaining to you why they might want to work on such games as AW.

Yes Tess might have added some writing as producers sometime do when needed. Still she was a producer, not writer for Obsidian. Avellone nearly killed himself working on those two games at the same time. Not to mention he wasn't Lead on Fallout 2. Wasn't Eric Lead on both games. So basically Stout did most of the comedic stuff in both AP and F:NV. Comedic themes, characters do fit in some games, but not every game. Either way Stout is someone I miss for Heck alone, but he had other plans for his career and is now the Lead writer on Assassin's Creeds. Ziets, ah so he finally settled in. Good for him and for InXile. Their games (judging by Wasteland 2) could use some better writing. I agree about Bloodlines, but I think you need to have multiple good games (or bad) from a writer to see if he is really that good or bad. The setting, project director etc. have a huge influence on how things might end up. 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. 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.

Tess was a producer, not a writer. Fenstermaker was working fulltime on South Park as well as writing for PoE. Not that easy jumping from one project to an another. 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. 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? 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. 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.