Flouride

Haven't checked recently, but at least the first few were made with the same smallish team.

Hopefully those NDA's will run out soonish. I think Obs still got like 2 years left of Aliens: RPG NDA according to some interview. Unless I remember the interview completely wrong

Don't know about NWN, didn'd like the original one at all. No idea, I would imagine they would put their dlc team working on DA2 dlcs quite soon. Since they seem to like those day1 dlcs.

Nope, just find it funny how they made these big talks how they got 2 years worth of expansions and dlcs planned out and then they release 1 expansion and 5? really short dlcs for the game before announcing that the sequel is coming out in like 6-8 months. They even had that release date printed and shipped out with Awakenings, which makes it sound like they scrapped their plans really early on. Unless for some bizarre reason they will still continue making expansions and dlc for DAO even after DA2 comes out.

It was supposed to be both dlcs and expansions.

Meh, seems like they are really rushing the sequel out. But I guess that was to be expected when EA bought BioWare. Also what happened to the 2 year plan for DA:O?

Graham "2 yellow cards don't mean I should give this player a red card" Poll is your source? Please gimme me/us a break. That guy was just horrible the last time I've seen him reffing international game.

Howard Webb ruined the final. He somehow misses clear dives from Iniesta and then misses what should have been a corner which then leads to Spain scoring... CBA to even mention the other mistakes he did.

Several interviews were they actually interviewed people from Obsidian and not from Sega. Can't be bothered to go diggin through old interviews though, but here's one quote from Gamebanshee interview "GB: During the game

Wasn't it more like 4 years since no development was being done by Obsidian on the game after Sega pushed back the release date? Development was still done on the game after the delay (things like inventory comparison screens were added). According to some interviews, nope.

Witcher 2 and Dragon Age 2 are single player games, so DS3 will benefit for having multiplayer. Not that it would be smart for all 3 games to be released in short time period... And more than likely Dragon Age 2 will pretty much dominate the other two in sales. EA's massive marketing and BioWare's reputation kinda guarantee that. But since we still don't know a lot (nothing) about DS3, who knows how well it will do. FNV has about 203k preorders so far in USA alone for consoles and pc. True, it cannot compete with CoD: Black Ops, nothing can. Lemmings will buy that game no matter what since it has CoD in it. I would imagine those preorder numbers will only go up once the final marketing push starts. That could/should guarentee Obsidian another shot with Fallout. Predicting Obsidian's death is "a bit" premature and harsh if you ask me. They still got 3 games being worked on, ****loads of ideas to use and Feargus seems like a guy with one billion connections in the gaming world

I'm such a huge Holland fan that I must have missed his biased commentary

Wasn't it more like 4 years since no development was being done by Obsidian on the game after Sega pushed back the release date?

No it doesn't. Other one lets you explore multiple choiced and go back and worth. Other one has a system that doesn't allow that and has a timer limit on how long you can think about what to answer. Quite a difference already there. General concept of C&C has been mostly the same for ages, so your claim that AP copies ME c&c is just silly, which was my point, but I guess you choose to ignore that. AP's c&c did add something to it, with the story branching already in the middle depending what you did 1st etc. Nonsense. Quality isn't irrelevant nor is making a sequel completely unoriginal amd uncreative. Taking chances... It's not that simple as you make it sound. Not that many indie developers can go and just decide that oh we are gonna make xxxxxxx instead of xxxxxx 5. It's mostly up to the publishers since they have the money to pay for the development and with the current economy crisis how many companies are actually willing to put millions of dollars into a brand new IP when they can just create a sequel to something previously made. As for what comes to Obsidian taking chances.. I think it's a quite huge chance Feargus etc. took when they formed their own indie crpg studio. And Bioware didn't just decide to make a Mass Effect trilogy, for that they needed a) publisher, in this case Microsoft b) a succesful 1st title to guarentee sequels.

So with your awesome logic a game can't be original or creative at all if it's a sequel even though they might have added and changed stuff that are creative&original and as well as created a way better (and new) plot, dialogue and characters. And now you are comparing c&c from AP to ME and the dialogue system that differs quite a lot from Bioware's system. C&C in ME series so far is something like you getting an email, or meeting a npc that wouldn't show up at all if you did something differently in the original game as well as your basic c&c that has been in pretty much every western rpg done by Bioware/BIS/Obsidian/Troika. Now compare that to AP where a lot of things change during your playthrough depending what you do. Don't get me even started about the dialogue system...

Yea, since no one has ever done that basic plot/start before Mass Effect...

I found KOTOR2 more original and creative than KOTOR as a Star Wars game. Mask of the Betrayers soul eating thingie (can't remember what it was called) was also somewhat original if you compare it to say NWN which didn't have anything creative nor spectacular when it comes to sp. Calling AP ME3 means that ME2 was Gears of War 3? And you haven't even played DS3 or FNV.

What? He was? I must have missed that. Anyways that referee did try his best to let Uruquay score 3-3...

True, but at least on that original release date it didn't have the stamp "twice delayed" and if you are going to postpone the game don't put it against even more titles. There were some months (yes after ME2) when there weren't as much competition being released. Reviews would have compared it to ME1 and not ME2. At least in my opinion ME2 was more of a main stream game (with limited character building, "better" gameplay as in, rpg mechanics didn't effect shooting as much as in ME1, which was one of the things AP got **** in reviews) than ME1 which had more RPG mechanics in it. Would either one of these been drastic enough for us to get a sequel? Who knows, but better release date and/or being released before ME2 would have helped a bit.

BG series and NWN series are nowhere near the amount what hit main stream games sell. But they are hits in their own genre. Kids thesedays get really easily frustrated if a game is too hard or if it doesn't blow their mind since the very beginning of the game. Release date does matter when it comes to sales, it would have mattered on reviews as well if the game had been out before ME2. It won't fix flaws you might see with the game though, I give you that. I personally enjoeyed the game more than I enjoyed ME2 and didn't see any fundamental flaws in it. Not that ME2 is bad game either.

Please give us few examples of the huge risks Bioware has taken? As for your bioware nuthugging, cba to even comment. Main stream gamers like rpg mechanics? Since when? Main stream gamers like a game that actually will punish you for your stupidity in developing your character? Since when? No. Most of if not all blame considering release date fiasco goes to Sega. The game was ready, but Sega decided to push it back, not Obsidian. Since when is it good publicity to a game or good pr towards your customers to just remain silent about the release date when the game is supposed to be out during that month? And I'd like you to point out how you can blame Obsidian for Sega's stupid decision to release the game on the most crowded month of 1st half of 2010. Especially if you consider the fact, yes a FACT that the game was ready to be shipped anytime Sega wanted it to go out.

Those are not excuses. Those are "facts" Yes, Obsidian could have done a better job as well, but the release fiasco was all Sega's doing and that ended up hurting the sales. Not really sure if they were afraid of Dragon Age that much or whether the initial pr company they had handling the marketing dropped the ball completely and thus they had to push back the release date to actually get some marketing for the game. Just like with movie box office in gaming as well the release date will decide a lot in some cases. Releasing a game right after a massive hit such RDR (and against Alan Wake, UFC 2010 etc.) is not wise from a marketing nor a sales point of view. Nor is it very wise to go against Spiderman 3 or say Shrek 4 in movie theaters.

No, it should have been released before the sequel to the game everyone was comparing it to. Simultaneously or after, doesn't matter. Both are bad choices when you had the chance to release it before.

Somewhat predictable, but still **** off, Sega. I'd like them to point out a game that actually sold well this spring after RDR came out (other than Super Mario something something for Wii and RDR). They messed up completely with their marketing in the first place and then released the game against several major titles after their brilliant plan to publish it at a better time which only hurt the game.

Great interview, can't wait to hear about that 3rd project