Matthew Rorie

I'm guessing pretty much that. It should be a fair bit more substantial than that, although I don't know how it'll be edited up or how long the segment will be. It'll be airing next Friday at 10 PM PST, so you shouldn't have to wait too long to find out.

I updated it today with some interesting news. Day to day there isn't always a lot to say (especially since I can't log into it from my phone), but I'll try to update it more often.

As a note, every one of the five owners of Obsidian was once in QA. Also, the "game writer" topic that's right below you in this forum is a good resource for more tips from the Obsidian peeps, many of whom responded to that thread as well.

Oh, it be coming out.

In a game where you follow hawks to jump off the highest buildings possible and land unharmed in shallow haystacks, your biggest problem is that dying people can utter a few words? Genius at work. an adventure game in which you leap off tall buildings into haystacks doesn't stretch plausibility. but a stealth game in which you the assassin hang around for several minutes to listen to the dying speech of the guy you just killed in full view of two dozen guards? you don't have to be any kind of genius to see how badly that breaks credibility. But you weren't ever actually in full view of two dozen guards - you were in your own head, strapped into a giant machine that was specifically designed to allow you to interact with your memories. You were essentially in the Matrix, so the rules are a bit loosey-goosey, especially since they weren't ever really told to you.

We've spoken a bit about some of them before. Pistols have Chain Shot, which lets you enter into a slo-motion aiming mode, which allows you to line up your aim on up to three exposed enemies, then return time to its normal speed and drop them all. SMGs have Bullet Storm, which lets you fire without needing to reload for a short period of time, and also increases the damage that you deal, I believe. I don't know that we've spoken about the other two, though...but I believe both of those powers have been revealed in previous coverage.

Been trying Battlefield Bad Company, Prince of Persia, and Valkyria Chronicles. The "fight this huge tank in the desert" mission in Valkyria kind of wore me out, though. I've also been making my way through the various Red Alert 3 campaigns. If I ever become a crazy stalker person I am going to do it for the British girl who gives you tips in the Allied campaign.

I put that on a mixtape for a girl and I expect brownie points.

I really enjoyed Assassin's Creed. I think it could've used some kind of RPG levelling system, where you got to pick your upgrades after each assassination, but then I think that about most games.

It's still being thought about...it's not something that can just be thrown together. Not if you want to do it right, at any rate.

Seemed like fun, although I didn't get to the end.

We have a twitter feed up at: http://twitter.com/obsidian_ent If any of you Obsidian fans want to follow it, who knows what you might find.

Indeed. I meant to make a post about it - I might as well just make it a full post. Assuming funcroc doesn't beat me to it.

For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at risk of life above and beyond the call of duty on September 12, 1944, in an attack on Saulx de Vesoul, France 1st Lt. Tominac charged alone over 50 yards of exposed terrain onto an enemy roadblock to dispatch a 3-man crew of German machine gunners with a single burst from his Thompson machinegun. After smashing the enemy outpost, he led 1 of his squads in the annihilation of a second hostile group defended by mortar, machinegun, automatic pistol, rifle and grenade fire, killing about 30 of the enemy. Reaching the suburbs of the town, he advanced 50 yards ahead of his men to reconnoiter a third enemy position which commanded the road with a 77-mm. SP gun supported by infantry elements. The SP gun opened fire on his supporting tank, setting it afire with a direct hit. A fragment from the same shell painfully wounded 1st Lt. Tominac in the shoulder, knocking him to the ground. As the crew abandoned the M-4 tank, which was rolling down hill toward the enemy, 1st Lt. Tominac picked himself up and jumped onto the hull of the burning vehicle. Despite withering enemy machinegun, mortar, pistol, and sniper fire, which was ricocheting off the hull and turret of the M-4, 1st Lt. Tominac climbed to the turret and gripped the 50-caliber antiaircraft machinegun. Plainly silhouetted against the sky, painfully wounded, and with the tank burning beneath his feet, he directed bursts of machinegun fire on the roadblock, the SP gun, and the supporting German infantrymen, and forced the enemy to withdraw from his prepared position. Jumping off the tank before it exploded, 1st Lt. Tominac refused evacuation despite his painful wound. Calling upon a sergeant to extract the shell fragments from his shoulder with a pocketknife, he continued to direct the assault, led his squad in a hand grenade attack against a fortified position occupied by 32 of the enemy armed with machineguns, machine pistols, and rifles, and compelled them to surrender. His outstanding heroism and exemplary leadership resulted in the destruction of 4 successive enemy defensive positions, surrender of a vital sector of the city Saulx de Vesoul, and the death or capture of at least 60 of the enemy. I would make that text flash if I could.

Currently only at Rogue 4 / Swash 1, which means the halfling kind of sucks at close combat. The problem is I have no idea how high a level SOZ can take you (I'm assuming 15), and I'm not really convinced by some of the Swashbuckler's higher level benefits. I'm not one of those who can dissect the minutiae of D&D classes easily, but from what I can see in broad chunks, level 8 for the +4 flanking bonus is only as far as you need go - or even just level 3 for weapon finesse and the reflex bonus, since rogues can (I think?) easily match the forthcoming dodge/reflex extras. The swash does have a high BAB though, so I suppose later on they turn out more meatier than rogues. I might just crank up the swash levels up to 8 now, and see what happens. I was sort of envisioning a dextrous melee fighter with small weapons doing a lot of flanking (with sneak attack bonuses thrown in), but we'll see. Combat seems a lot more difficult, especially with stabilising dying party members. Kind of sucks that my sorceress is a yuan-ti and I'm compromised by the level adjustment, though. You can go as high as you want in SOZ - the level cap is still 30, just like MOTB. Of course, beyond the high teens you won't gain much experience from quests and monsters.

I'll throw this out to some of our designers and see what they say!

From what I've heard, he's involved in most high-level decisions, regardless of media. E.g. he signed off on the death of Chewbacca, was heavily involved in the Shadow of the Empire experiment (I believe there was even scuttlebutt about turning it into a movie of its own at some point), and I'm sure he was involved in the Force Unleashed plotline, etc., etc. I'm guessing he still cringes at the thought of the Holiday Special and doesn't want a repeat of that. I doubt he analyzes every single joint of every single action figure, but he's definitely involved with the franchise's important direction decisions.

All I know is that it's a bad time to be getting into the games journalism industry. GameSpot laid off 15 or so people a month ago, now we got 30 more people on the street. Even if some of them work their contacts to get jobs at publishers (who themselves are often cutting back), that's still too many people for too few positions. I enjoyed working at GameSpot; though it's an incredible amount of work (and I'm sure the people left behind are now all doing the jobs of two people), working for a game website is still pretty cool. Which must make it doubly crappy for these people, because losing an awesome job must be worse than losing a job you're indifferent about. Pretty crazy that gaming publishers and gaming press are going through these kinds of cutbacks, when the industry as a whole is still growing. But I guess part of being a suit is preparing for the worst, and who knows what 2009 might bring.

Yeah, his carrying capacity has been reduced to two weapons (counting SMGs as one weapon). So he shouldn't look quite so crazy in future shots.

http://www.oxmonline.com/article/previews/a-f/alpha-protocol For any of you who didn't get the magazine.

Well, we did redo the homepage with a new content management system a while back called Joomla, which makes it a lot easier to do things with periodic updates like news or a blog. Not that the forum-based blogs are bad, per se, but if we did a Joomla-based blog and made it a more prominent part of the homepage it might be a little easier for people to find it, instead of having it simply exist on the forums. Plus, you get to do cool things like add a Twitter widget, do trackbacks, maybe have a blogroll for employees, etc. This is still in the planning stages and might not work out anytime soon, but we're definitely thinking of some stuff.

He wasn't hurt or anything; it was a Soul Calibur reference, I believe.

I think a company blog will be occurring before a podcast will, but it's also been something I've been thinking about for a while. From the number of "How do I get into the games industry?" questions we receive, I think a rotating podcast based on that topic alone might be interesting. But we'll see! Having been on the Giant Bombcast once or twice now, and on the GameSpot podcast before that, it's definitely an interesting experience. I think that, as a developer who works through publishers, we'd have to be a lot more careful about what we say than what a press website could get away with, but still - it's been something I've had on my mind for a while.

We're all pretty sad to see him go!

I set up Twitter and facebook and everything on my new blackberry. They don't call these things crackberries for nothing. I never thought I would ever post on twitter but now that it's mobile I figure it's better to do that than be all bored while I'm waiting for someone somewhere, etc.