Masterfade

What's with this whole 'exploration' craze, anyway? I'd have hours of my life back if I didn't spend so much time backtracking from place to place in the Fallout games. Less exploration = Less opportunities for easy DLC integration = Less money milked

I saw the topic and for a moment thought Gary Gygax is back with us.

If the release date is still 27 Oct, review copies should be out by now. Oh well, time to hang around Desslock's twitter...

It's not related to Obsidian, but I wonder how much did CCP pay for White Wolf. I was really surprised when the buyout was announced. I'd like to think WoD is a very valuable IP and White Wolf is worth more than a new comer with one mildly successful MMO under its belt.

From USTPO website: Word Mark ALPHA PROTOCOL Goods and Services IC 009. US 021 023 026 036 038. G & S: video game software; computer game software; computer game programs; video game programs for use with handheld game machines; video game programs for use with mobile phones, downloadable video game programs Owner (APPLICANT) Kabushiki Kaisha Sega DBA Sega Corporation CORPORATION JAPAN 1-2-12 Haneda, Ohta-Ku Tokyo JAPAN 144-8521 Of course there might be a clause in their contact saying if SEGA cancel the game then the IP returns to Obsidian. But for now it does appear SEGA owns AP.

I'm not going to argue either way if EA had overvalued Bioware. But I think it's worth pointing out the interest of the shareholders and the interest of the management may not be exactly aligned, and a company may indeed pay more than it should without being 'altruistic'. In case of EA's VG Holdings buyout (VG Holdings was the parent company of Bioware and Pandemic, just like ZeniMax is the parent company of Bethesda and id), Riccitiello was a senior manager at Elevation Partners and masterminded Elevation's 300 million acquisition of Bioware and Pandemic in 2005. He was the Chief Executive of the merged company before returning to EA as CEO. After Riccitiello's return, EA paid Elevation 600+ millions for VG Holdings in 2007. Riccitiello received nearly 5 million dollars from Elevation after the buyout. I'm not accusing Riccitiello of doing anything improper, but that was certainly one of the more questionable deals in video games history.

Presumably SEGA paid millions (if not tens of millions) of dollars for Obsidian to develop AP. Unless Obsidian decide to buy the rights back, they're stuck with SEGA.

Nope. I got that from people I play WoW with, hardcore raiders who have EJ forum as their browser homepage. Guaranteed my guild is hardly a representive sample of potential SWTOR buyers, but those among us who do care about the game care because it's a game being made by a MMO outsider with established reputation. They're hoping an outsider may breath some fresh air into the genre. MMO players are used to iconic IPs, Star Wars, Matrix, LoTR, Conan, etc. We'll get Star Trek and DC Universe soon enough and the rumor is Sony is working with LucasArts on a new free-to-play Star Wars MMO. Now just name me one established developer beside Bioware who ventured into the MMO market in the last, say, five years? Anyway, this discussion is getting pretty meaningless, we're talking without statistics about something people will pay thousands of dollars to a market research company for. Let's go back to EA and MS. Personally I love EA, taking money from the benighted Madden/Sims masses to make Mirror's Edge and Dead Space for us hardcores? Hell yes.

What middleware do Onyx integrate or is it entirely proprietary?

I'm not sure about that. The buzz around SWTOR seems to be more "ZOMG it's a Bioware MMO" than "ZOMG it's a Star Wars MMO". WoW became this behemoth without a mainstream recognizable brand-name (I dare say a lot of WoW players have never played any of the Warcraft RTS games), while Matrix Online is laying dead, Star Wars Galaxy on its death bed and LOTRO's trying its best just to survive.

EA will get the developer's cut, but the share will probably be lower than what EA is used to. Also EA is building LucasArts' IP instead of their own, they can't license a SWTOR movie, etc. I won't be surpised if some of the EA people wish it's Mass Effect Online instead of Star Wars.

Game industry definitely should learn from the movie/publishing business on this fine art of quotation. Then suddenly every Bethesda/Bioware box would bear Codexian approval.

Both those buyouts were by the same person though- John Riccitiello- just wearing different hats. He's hardly going to sell (himself, effectively) Bioware for less than he paid for it originally, if for no other reason than he'd get sued by Elevation Partners if he did so. Bioware is overvalued as it stands- you can, after all, work out their income streams roughly from their sales and compare that to other companies'. The big question being how SWTOR performs, if it's a genuine WoW killer then 750mUSD for Bioware alone would be a steal. SWTOR is being published by LucasArts and using their IP so I'm not sure how much EA will get out of it. Elevation Partners made a terrific deal out of VG Holdings, buying Bioware and Pandemic for 300+ milliions and selling them two years later for doubling at least. Riccitiello personally got 5 millions for overseeing the buyout. I feel it's EA shareholders who got the shift and paid much more than it's worth. This time, if Microsoft promised, say 20 or so million dollars, to Riccitiello if the buyout is carried out, I can totally imagine him trying to persuade the EA board to sell out. But as people said, this deal make no sense for Microsoft. Maybe it's just someone trying to cash out his EA shares and made up the rumor. Wonder if market regulators will make some investigations.

I'm surprised no one has brought up Daggerfall yet. Some of the best music ever in a RPG IMHO. For the iPod masses put off by MIDI files, unShackled hosted his own gorgeous rearrangements along with original score on Daggerfall Music Project site, all in MP3 format. Winter city theme and the temple theme are my personal favorites, but who can forget DF's lovely shop theme? Daggerfall also has , but that's kinda cheating because you can pile up all the video game composers and still not touch the feet of Dvorak. For those willing to try something different, the Asian free MMORPG Zu Online has some great musical moments. Although as one can expect from a low-budget free MMO, good scores are somewhat marred by cheap synthesizers.

I've heard Mass Effect did pretty well in Japan and Oblivion was such a success there Bethsoft decided to open up a Tokyo office. IMO SEGA shouldn't simply write off Japan as a potential market for AP.

I think it's almost a genre convention that RPGs start out fairly hard, getting progressively easier and become a complete cakewalk half-way through the game. And being 'too hard' and being a 'hardcore' RPG are really two different things. A lot of hardcore RPG players I know are not used to twitchy shooter/action gameplay. If AP is difficult because it requires a great deal of fast-reaction and precision then it may actually turn some of its core audience anyway.

IMO player should on average lose money if they choose to gamble in a casino, just like in real life. Make the gambling skill give player various options to cheat in mini game(s).

My mistake then, kind of assumed AP is Onyx-based. But rest of what I said still stand. AP is the first original IP created by Obsidian (as a company), and I feel SEGA just don't have the willingness, focus and experience to help them through it.

They're also selling Drakensang for $5. http://www.direct2drive.com/7595/product/B...rk-Eye-Download

Reload animations are good because you can actually see them in first person view, so some honest efforts had been made there. Bethesda introduced the third person view in Morrowind as a glorified screenshot mode. Unfortunately, it never managed to grow out of that.

Thanks, Nath, for coming out and sharing some nerdy details with us. IMO, the problem with releasing commercial games for Linux is very little market would be gained from such a move. I have no hard numbers here, but I seriously doubt there are many computers out there with graphics cards capable of running brand-new AAA titles yet run Linux without a Windows dual-boot setup. If I'm going to build a computer running only Linux, I won't even bother with a dedicated graphics card. Epic used to talk about porting Unreal Engine 3 to Linux, but so far nothing has came out of it. id is to my knowledge the only major developer that releases native Linux executables, and all id's Linux ports are basically done by one guy in his spare time. That speaks a lot about the current state of Linux gaming.

The quotations in the article gave me the impression that Feargus was explaining to rest of the panel Obsidian's strategy to get publishing deals during the economic slowdown, rather than discussing what a hypothetical developer may do. As we knew FO:NV was initiated from the Bethesda side, the project in question could have only been the unannounced title, right?

Gamasutra - GDC Austin: The Pitfalls And Practicalities Of Licensed Games Of course the highlighted part is reporter's own speculation, but as an industry site Gamasutra may have some insider knowledge, so who knows.