Zoraptor

If it's 2d as the gamebanshee interview suggests then a likely camera style is similar to other isometric 2d games; Baldurs Gate/ IE, Fallout/ Jagged Alliance etc as you really need 3d to have an adjustable camera (except for zooming, though that would still have a fixed angle/ aspect).

Why do you hate me, multiquote? It's technically true for Paradox though I'm not sure how anyone could sensibly describe it as not being drm when CK2 has had 10 (?) patches and 12 (?) dlcs, all of which only work through steam- unless you're an enlightened and informed individual and purchased the gamersgate version, of course. Given how frequently they talked about hating drm and not having a preferred estore Paradox basically have to insist that steam isn't drm though. While I'd tend to agree that purchasing direct from the developer is best as an option, all distribution systems do have costs, Obsidian cannot simply provide the game themselves without overheads- you either need a system to manage purchases or accounts yourself (potentially expensive to establish and maintain) or use a premade system like BMT Micro, which will take their own cut. Using steam for "pre purchases" like kickstarter is understandable since part of the Embrace Extend Extinguish philosophy Gabe learned at MS is the benefit of loss leading, hence free steamworks in the first place, something smaller players with lower resources like GOG find difficult to match. Which is, of course, the whole point of steam offering it in the first place.

I wouldn't put money (ohoho) on there necessarily being an option to include a toolkit, or at least anything approaching a fully featured one. Non tiled 2d levels are potentially problematic and there may be 3rd party plug ins involved that would require $$$ or permission to redistribute. Be nice is it does happen, of course.

Raithe mentioned he'd got a new job with bad hours in one of the Project Eternity threads.

That is a very silly policy from GOG, would not be at all surprised if it goes very quickly. It's not like indie even has a set definition. You can quite easily define Paradox (developed) games as being indie, or Valve games for that matter as neither has an external publisher. On the other hand most would refer to Bastion as indie. If GOG want it not to be a problem it won't be, even if the 'solution' amounts to deciding the publisher is 'Obsidian'.

Pre order/ forum member bonus: Helm of Visceris and Blade of Honour item set. Seriously though, most people would think it's a misspelt GoT/ ASOIAF reference.

Technically, a whole host of things are only very likely- it's just extraordinarily tiresome to specify that every time much as it's extraordinarily tiresome to presage everything with imo. IMO this game will be released on PC and be an RPG, but I guess it could be a flight simulator for Commodore 64 instead. As it happens there is a (marginally) possible alternative in that Obsidian has (theoretically at least, and if other information is correct) an unused UE licence from a cancelled project. But Onyx is still the vastly most likely possibility though for all the reasons Tigranes listed.

Watchmen RPG, clearly. Who Watchers the Watchermen? Or maybe a Pratchett/ Sapkowski crossover featuring Sam Geralt of Ankh-Rivia.

Why wouldn't they tease a game then put up a kickstarter for it? If it is a kickstarter then they will need to get as much money as possible out of it- maybe as much as DFA and Wasteland 2 combined, given the size of Obsidian. Best way to do that is to get the hype train running full steam ahead of time, not to go from a standing start, and to have something to show as part of the kickstarter pitch as well which would explain the delay. At the moment Kickstarter is the most likely explanation of why it's Obsidian and not a publisher doing the hyping. It isn't definitive, it could be funded by an investment group like BVT (who for example funded NWN2 for Atari) who wouldn't/ couldn't do hyping themselves or by someone who isn't really a computer game publisher like Hasbro/ WOTC, but that seems a lot less likely. Certainly if it were a big publisher there'd be an expectation that they'd be hyping it themselves instead of, or as well as, Obsidian.

Dunno if the 2d stuff is directly SP related though- the cartoon itself for example is done in Maya despite being "2d". It also seems to be a bit late in the picture for such hires relating to SP unless there's either a mobile or flash tie in. For that matter, the infinity engine stuff was 3d models (from Max, iirc) rendered out to 2d rather than being intrinsic 2d as well.

It's not a joke. It's sadism. It can't be TORN anyway, as that's queued up as Interplay's next kickstarter after the success of Battlechess. Now THAT's sadism.

I shall use my powers of deduction to decide that all the X's are important... clearly a roman numeral. OMG IT'S ULTIMA X!!!!

If you buy an empty glass described as an empty glass you don't get the right to complain that it isn't full when you bought it.

A PC will work with a gamepad 100% fine and a lot of PC gamers actually have one and game with them- while a 360 won't handle a KB&M set up at all. For that reason a 'perfect' port may be done one way but not the other unless, of course, the PC game was designed with gamepad support in which case no problems, 'perfect' port possible. If you don't like that approach then the recourse is simply not to buy, it's not like anyone can really say they've been misinformed about what the port was and was not doing- in fact I'd say they've been more honest than pretty much anyone else would be. I'm sure we've all seen Optimised for PC!!!! lists which contain a whole lot of questionable claims, if not outright lying, and I'm all for people being honest about their products. Buying and then complaining about stuff that was already known about is, well, a bit unfair IMO.

Is 1024x720 at 30fps not good enough for mister fifty screens? Joking aside, I agree, worst port ever, thankfully someone has made a resolution patch, maybe they can fix the framerate too. Seriously that 1024x720 is lower res than what I was playing 12 years ago! Luckly that patch lets me set whatever res I want, so I bumped it up to 4k and it looks really good now 1280x720 is the standard console HD resolution. You guys have been depriving yourselves of a whole extra 176 column pixels! It's not like they lied about it not being a direct port and bragged about all the wonderful improvements made for the glorious PC Gaming Master Race- whose magnificent contribution was a petition that got all but the Euro retail version saddled with the DRM scheme they like and the DRM scheme they dislike; ta muchly, everyone involved. It's a bad port only if it doesn't work properly on PC, if it works exactly like the console version then it's actually a perfect, though unimproved, port.

Yeah, he's probably looking to sell the name since its about the only thing left there to sell and wants to remind people it exists. Either that or he thinks a Torn kickstarter would do better than a Battlechess one.

An alignment system is pretty intrinsic to Star Wars as well, and Mass Effect too, if more peripherally. It isn't just D&D. I think having an 'alignment' based dialogue system is an interesting idea, though I'm not convinced of its practicality for much other than minor choices and cosmetic stuff which (to an extent, though it's more often skill based rather than 'alignment') it is already used for- you wouldn't want the Big Choice in KOTOR to become the Big Railroad just because you'd been rescuing cats and building hospitals for bunnies since Taris; no matter how silly it actually is to do a 180 at that point not allowing the option would annoy people enormously. But if your character is an atheist, for example, and you chose at creation to make them one then you really ought not to be able to join a religion except under particular circumstances- one of those exceptions might be if you've been systematically undermining that atheism throughout the game. You'd have to lose the atheist trait as a consequence, but I'm all for that sort of 'alignment' shift if it's warranted.

Obs were looking at hiring someone with mobile development experience which could be related to a mobile WoT game. The dates for the contract seemed to suggest it might be for something South Park though.

The dlc for DAO is problematic to install full stop- I've got the retail ultimate edition and even that had significant problems. That certainly isn't the reason for DA2 getting blocked though, that's down to the changed tos.

Valve changed their Terms of Sale to exclude 3rd party dlc handling between the releases of DAO and DA2 which is why DA2 ain't on there. As such it was Valve's decision as if it was EA's they would/ could have pulled everything off of steam, and DA2 is available at most other vendors eg below. Gamersgate is selling DA2 cheapish at the moment if really keen on it, though it's been and no doubt will be cheaper.

I disagree- Bioware has never been about 'artistic integrity' for its own benefit, it's always been about money. They've made hard nosed business decisions like cutting off Interplay and produced utter tripe (NWN OC) without any input from anyone at EA/ EP. Almost everyone in business wants to make money, it's a matter of where you place your priorities, and from following what they said about starting to make "event games" and trying to appeal to a huge audience and similar quotes around the EP purchase, combined with the fact that's when they started to make crap games, I draw the conclusion that that was the breaking point. Also you normally wouldn't sell your company unless your goal is now to cash in. If they really wanted to cash in they'd have quit by now. They'd probably have quit as soon as contractually allowed to do so. On the other point, both KOTOR and Jade Empire were attempts to go with more mass market 'event gaming' types, and they were both well prior to EP. There's pretty much a direct line from the more trad RPGs to them, and to the Mass Effects. It's unfair to push stuff that was clearly decided upon by people at Bioware (like the ME3 ending) onto EA and even things like TOR being an MMO rather than a genuine K3 must have happened at the very least with LucasArts approval even if it weren't suggested by/ a condition imposed by them. EA can be blamed for some stuff like MP in ME3 or Origin (if it floats your boat) but that's comparatively minor. Even DA2's short dev time was at least partly because Bioware took so long to make DAO.

The legal shenanigans were not sufficient to stop games being made though, Neverwinter was in development pretty much throughout and Daggerdale was fairly recent and well post NWN2, though I would tend to suspect that the inability to produce games and specifically 4e games was why Hasbro were so keen to remove Atari. Of course, there still aren't any new D&D games in development that we know of but I'd presume that Hasbro are trying to shop the licence around. I guess if they have trouble getting any takers a 2/3e IE based BG3 could be a possibility to drum up interest and show it's (D&D) still a viable brand even if it's likely more retrograde than they'd want. Personally I'd get someone to make a 5e NWN3 with a SoZ style map as it would be ideal for a drop in dlc/ premium access based business model.

I disagree- Bioware has never been about 'artistic integrity' for its own benefit, it's always been about money. They've made hard nosed business decisions like cutting off Interplay and produced utter tripe (NWN OC) without any input from anyone at EA/ EP.

Why a pity? There's a new hole now that has to be filled. This is Obsidians chance. As much as I root for Obsidian, anyone who dreams of this will be in for a rude surprise if Bio does come apart. Yep, all it would show is that even large and successful RPG makers cannot be successful enough any more, and it would get even more difficult to get RPGs made. Don't think there's any chance of Bioware going anywhere in the short term anyway. EA has just finished rebranding a bunch of studios and despite the Angry Internet Man response to ME3 it was a commercial success. It'd be baby with bathwater to cull them, and it'd be the end for Riccitiello given the amount he paid for them in the first place.

He's not running the Austin studio any more, that's all that has been 'confirmed'. They have done some other stuff since 2006, they did at least the first level of Bioshock 2 for example. They were also (allegedly, though there was some pretty decent circumstantial evidence) making System Shock 3 at the time John Riccitielo took over EA and killed most of their external development.