Zack Fair
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Posts posted by Zack Fair
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You realize this game was kickstarted right?
What the hell do you think they did for that?
So many kickstarters are the definition of pandering to an audience. What did you expect?
Nothing, I'm glad I wasn't expecting much from POE2 romances. Not really surprised or disappointed by the lack of effort. And all the pandering is for profit - commercial companies don't work for charity and they'll do anything to get a customer.
Pandering is such a homophobic excuse to show discomfort to LGBTQ people while sounding as delicated flower so please stop saying it. Media have been pandering straights people since dawn of time and still. Bi characters in this game are bisexual, and they are as realistic as bunch of straight characters in the party. Get over it.
Stop using this "homophobic excuse" for dismissing criticism. Nobody in this thread said that they are unfomfortable with bi characters. Those who are criticizing are just saying that it is lazy writing to make all the characters bi, just for the player can romance anybody they want. If I was a bisexual person, I would probably be more offened to be represented this way. Not being in the game for a meaningful purpose, as a well defined character, but just for romance option for everybody.
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Such a shame that Obsidian did not write well defined characters. I'm not saying that this makes the game bad, but I think having characters that will jump on you nomatter what sex and race you are is just lazy writing. Or pandering, I don't know which one is worse.
And I think it's nice I don't have to play through the entire game as an elven female to see the Solas romance. I'd rather be able to romance him with a dwarf male as well. It's fiction. Let the fictional people be without sexual preferences. There are more interesting things about them than who they bang.
Of course this is just a matter of one's preference, but I think it is just the opposite. It is much more interesting to have well defined character. Which is more interesting and nuanced? Having all the NPCs romancable disregarding the players sex and race...or having a gay orlan, a bisexual elf, a straight dwarf etc, and you actually have to play different characters in the game who can form a relationship with these different characters? Having everybody romancable is just immersion breaking, it's like those NPCs are just walking sextoys. Good writing means that you actually believe that these are actual characters in this fantasy world.
As for having to play the game multiple times to unlock all romance options? First, this is an RPG, which warrants several playthroughs. Second, nobody is forcing you to unlock all the romance options. But if your aim in the game is to unlock every romance in one playthrough...well, I don't know what else could I say to you, the current setup is just good for you.
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Am I understanding it right that every companion besides Eder and Pallegina is bisexual? Great, I knew Obsidian still knows how to write well defined characters.
The correct term is "player sexual", because they also don't care about your race.
Such a shame that Obsidian did not write well defined characters. I'm not saying that this makes the game bad, but I think having characters that will jump on you nomatter what sex and race you are is just lazy writing. Or pandering, I don't know which one is worse.
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Am I understanding it right that every companion besides Eder and Pallegina is bisexual? Great, I knew Obsidian still knows how to write well defined characters.
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It's only for the prologue and important parts of the main quest...
This inconsistency also a problem. If they couldn't do a narration for the whole game, why even bother?
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Companies trend towards.... being immoral and upper management selects for certain anti social behaviors. It's easier to make money if you have less empathy. So, upper management of any business being **** isn't particularly newsworthy. It'd be more unique if Obsidian upper management was run by genuinely nice people who took the feelings and well beings of their staff into account every decision they made.
And shall we give them a hug for being as scummy as the rest of the companies? Good job Obsidian, you are not worse than others, you are simply just as bad.
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Chris is actively encuraging Obsidian workers to confirm his claims.
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Chris says that _nick is a shill, DU facetiously says he's on Obs' payroll and Chris takes it seriously?
lolwut.
He says "IF you are an Obsidian worker etc", he is not sure about that.The message here is that Chris is actively encouraging Obsidian workers to confirm his claims, if they indeed work at Obsidian.
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Chris is actively encuraging Obsidian workers to confirm his claims.
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Obsidian was supposed to fall apart without him. Tomorrow they are releasing a game that raised $4.4m.
Why are you making up stupid **** like this? Nobody said anything about Obsidian falling apart without him. But just for you know, MCA was one of the reasons the first Pillars got 4 million, and there can be a sequel.
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This is what makes me question the legitimacy of the revelations and the poster. I don't recall Avellone ever being this nasty (**** in your mouth, really?) even while replying to the billionth question about the Fallout Bible and its status.
Also, do we have any actual evidence, or is it all word of mouth (or forum post)?
I would love if that was not MCA, but I believe the real Avellone would have contacted someone at the Codex to stop this madness if that account was not his.
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@Messier-31:
and some fake praise (like Josh is a good project manager (but not a good game dev?)).Did he really say he is not a good game dev? I might have missed that, could you show me the quote?
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Would you employ that friend even if that friend is charging much more than another business which also has a good reputation on the market, but doing the work for e.g. 70% of the price? Because that would be pretty bad management.
I assume most people would rather pay someone they know and consider a friend rather than giving the business to someone they don't know at all. Not every decision is made based on cost alone even at well ran companies.
LOL no, if you run a business you don't just choose a friend, not considering the cost. Sure, if your friend does a great job AND he/she asks a fair price, you employ him/her. But if there are competition out there who also do a good job with a more competitive price, you would be foolish to not choose them. Of course you can do that if you don't care about the money, but you have to have a really well running studio to do that. And Obsidian is not a very well running studio.
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Follow him on Twitter for a while.
May I ask where do you get that alchohol stuff from?
A great question.The question is, why would MCA make up a story like this, which can be so easily refuted by anyone in the company? He is either believing that nobody will testify against him and makes a bluff like this, or ...you know... it is the truth. And this is true for everything he said. He made soooo many harsh claims in the last few days, and he knows that he has to prove these if he is getting sued for defamation. Now he is either an idiot, or knows that this is the truth.
It’s entirely speculation on my part, but the man isn’t shy about relationship with alcohol. Maybe he isn’t as happy and carefree as he would others to think that he is. Who knows.
I follow him for years and still don't know where do you get this from.
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- Accounting and finances were very non-transparent, with Feargus keeping tight control and outsourcing such work to personal friends of his who worked off-site. [forum post, forum post]
That isn't all that strange or unethical. You give finances and accounting to the person you trust with the money. And a lot of firms do this out of house. I have a close friend who is an accountant. He has his own little accounting firm and handles a number of big clients, including shipping companies and foreign investors. He doesn't "join" the company for the business. They hire his services. And if I had a larger business so would I, because he is the person I'd trust with such large sums: because he has a proven track record, but yes, also because we have been friends for 20 years.
Would you employ that friend even if that friend is charging much more than another business which also has a good reputation on the market, but doing the work for e.g. 70% of the price? Because that would be pretty bad management.
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A great question.The question is, why would MCA make up a story like this, which can be so easily refuted by anyone in the company? He is either believing that nobody will testify against him and makes a bluff like this, or ...you know... it is the truth. And this is true for everything he said. He made soooo many harsh claims in the last few days, and he knows that he has to prove these if he is getting sued for defamation. Now he is either an idiot, or knows that this is the truth.
It’s entirely speculation on my part, but the man isn’t shy about relationship with alcohol. Maybe he isn’t as happy and carefree as he would others to think that he is. Who knows.
May I ask where do you get that alchohol stuff from?
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I just don't believe they would refuse to payback their workforce. That would just lead to massive loss of workforce and no one would ever want to work for them after a stunt like that. It might have been a off-hand comment or meant as a joke. But as serious comment, just seems out of this world and would leave them open to getting sued by their employees.
The question is, why would MCA make up a story like this, which can be so easily refuted by anyone in the company? He is either believing that nobody will testify against him and makes a bluff like this, or ...you know... it is the truth. And this is true for everything he said. He made soooo many harsh claims in the last few days, and he knows that he has to prove these if he is getting sued for defamation. Now he is either an idiot, or knows that this is the truth.
I guess Chris' friends at Obsidian have multiplied, he claimed earlier he only has 1 friend left at Obsidian.He might have only 1 friend, but several people he is in good terms with.
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LOL. If Feargus brings her wife to the company and he only gives her minimal wage, or better yet, her salary is deducted from Feargus' pay (which means she doesn't get any salary basicaly), then Feargus is pretty bad at this. Oh wait, he is a saint, so that must be it. You can't be serious that this is the case. Oh, you don't know this either.
Exactly. I don't know. Funny, neither do you, neither does Avellone. So when I point out how it could possibly be benign I am an idiot, because I have no data to prove it, but Avellone claiming it is nepotism and immoral is legit? Oh wait, he also has no evidence to prove that.
You don't talk crap if you have no data to back it up, that was the whole point of my post. Avellone has a name on a spreadsheet, and gives no context beyond that. Either because he doesn't have anything else to offer (so no actual data), or because the context would make his point moot so he omits it (data doesn't play into his narrative).
See I am a data analyst by trade. So one person asked what I know about Avellone? A lot actually, because he keeps running his mouth on the internet. Every time he does it, he does it specifically to hurt his former employer, and he has done it multiple times over multiple years. That says he holds a grudge, is likely very petty (in his own words he is rich now, it isn't like whatever deal he got from Obsidian actually hurt him), more than likely extremely self centered, and likely has a massive ego.
He also only ever says it on RPG Codex, which tells me more. It tells me he knows he has no real argument, because if he had real evidence to prove Feargus was unethical he would release it to a real news source. It tells me he is probably cowardly at heart, because he only ever posts this stuff on Codex, which is the safest space in the internet for Avellone. On any other forum he might face a critical reception, or hard analysis of what he is actually saying.
What do I know about Feargus? Not much. He runs a profitable company, he has not risen to the bait and replied to Avellone, his company does in fact do Charity work, and he did expense a big ass party for his team to celebrate a game release because they deserved some reward more than their normal paycheck. If nothing else that tells me he is at least a decent business man and manager, otherwise Obsidian would not have held on this long. He gives at least half a crap about his employees, or why give the party? Also he isn't dumb enough to fall for Avellone's bait, which means he has common sense, and values his companies reputation more than replying to personal attacks.
So yeah, if I had to trust one over the other, the data I have says I should trust Feargus. Unlike Avellone, he has never publicly tried to disparage former coworkers and business partners, or done anything blatantly self serving. That's good enough data for me.
PS: for all of you wondering why RPG Codex not being on this forum much at all anymore is a good thing, look at this thread. Now make threads like this pop up weekly. Yeah.
So Chris is untrustworthy because he has spoken against his former employer and Feargus is trustworthy, because he did not. Because that's all to it. We haven't seen any evidence that Chris was lying. And before you say it, I know we don't have hard evidence supporting Chris' claims either, that's why we can talk and speculate about it. Or we can just sweep everything under the carpet and call it a day. But what if Chris is telling the truth? Do you really think that everything he told us is just a made up story? You can't really believe that. And even if a fraction of what he was saying is true means that there are serious problems with Obsidian's management. And I'd rather talk about this, them being one of my favourite companies. But being a favourite doesn't mean that I don't care if they do something ****ty.
And stop dragging the Codex into this. He was talking about this on the Codex because the Codex bothered to ask. Unlike other magazines and forums who are afraid of asking any hard hitting questions from developers. Just compare a Codex interview with any other. Which one actually asks the more interesing, not watered down questions?
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I'll never get my dream Vampire game without MCA and Mitsoda coming back to Obsidian
vampire is a ****ty IP that should've been allowed to die with the '90s
Not ****tier than Pillars of Eternity. (and Pillars is a good IP) One of the greatest RPGs of all time is just happen to be based on that.
On May 8th there will be a big Deadfire release celebration stream where Chris Avellone shows up, gives Feargus a big hug, and they reveal it was all an elaborate prank. They'll also confirm Durance is a returning party member for the second half of the game, after Xoti turns out to be a Leaden Key infiltrator and leaves the party.
I want this to happen and they become buddies again. :'( This situation sucks so much, they were my heroes in the gaming industry.
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He really facelifted the PoE theme. I personally think his score was my favorite part of the first game, and I am glad to hear that he didn't underachieve this go around either. Justin Bell is a true asset to Obsidian. I said it after PoE launched, and I will say it again... Bell took the IE games musical style and simultaneously made it his own and allowed it to lay down the tone of Pillars. I am pretty excited to get some FLAC files for the ride to work.
What really shined for me were the Battle themes in Pillars 1, they evoked the IE feeling so much, yet they had their own style. I probably still like the IE main themes more, but this is also pretty good.
Agreed. I love The Dragon Thrashed and Wailed. At :42 seconds... Terrific.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jhACloVkrbs
I also prefer some of the IE stuff. I love Skeleton of a Town from IWD2, for instance. However, those shoes are big to fill, and Bell did an excellent job.
You just picked my favourite part.
Now that part is as good as any music in gaming. Friggin fantastic. I still get goosebumps listening to it.-
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He really facelifted the PoE theme. I personally think his score was my favorite part of the first game, and I am glad to hear that he didn't underachieve this go around either. Justin Bell is a true asset to Obsidian. I said it after PoE launched, and I will say it again... Bell took the IE games musical style and simultaneously made it his own and allowed it to lay down the tone of Pillars. I am pretty excited to get some FLAC files for the ride to work.
What really shined for me were the Battle themes in Pillars 1, they evoked the IE feeling so much, yet they had their own style. I probably still like the IE main themes more, but this is also pretty good.
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Let's just break the negativity and listen to this fine theme from Justin Bell, which was relesad a few hours ago on Youtube.
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Actually what I read from this is that while Chris knew that this is legal, he feels that is was not the good way to run a business. And it is not. A CFO without accounting or financial qualifications? Family members on a payroll just because? I know there are companies like this out there, but it is still not a good way to run a business.
I wonder how much Feargus wife makes? Oh wait he doesn't know does he? Ok, so her pay could be deducted for Feargu's pay? Could be she makes almost nothing and simply gets a living wage to cover food/car?
LOL. If Feargus brings her wife to the company and he only gives her minimal wage, or better yet, her salary is deducted from Feargus' pay (which means she doesn't get any salary basicaly), then Feargus is pretty bad at this. Oh wait, he is a saint, so that must be it. You can't be serious that this is the case. Oh, you don't know this either.
You don't know what happened just as we don't. The difference is that you brush aside Chris's accusations and blindly believing in Obsidian, just because this is business. Yes, this is how businesses are running. Pretty ****ty, isn't it? I'm sorry but I wouldn't want to work at your company if you think treating co-workers like this is good practice. I hate it when whenever some bad practice is brought up in the news about gaming companies, there are some people who think it is alright because this is how profit is made. And then developers leave companies burnt out because of crunch, unpaid overwork and so on. But hey, it is business, so how dares a former employee talk about these bad practices?
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Actually, he did try to write a novel. It was one of the Wasteland 2 backer rewards. Back then they said the novel is shaping up great and it is so good that they wanted to make it bigger or something, which is why it got delayed. It hasn't been released till today if I remember right, and I'm guessing inXile hopes everyone forgot about it already.
Umm, has anyone here said that, or has this anything to do with the hand at matter? And for the record, Chris was always humble about his writing, and contrary to other "writers" in the industry, he never tried to write a novel (cough cough, Dragon Age books anyone), probably because he knows his place. The most he did is some novellas for Kickstarter games. And if you don't think that his writing is pretty good in terms of videogame writing, you don't know what are you talking about. So thank for your insight, it meant a lot.Go read read some decent literature, video games are not the bastion of world class writing, and he is no where near a great author.
Other than that, he wrote a lot for comics and pen and paper games and stuff like that. So your point of him only writing for games is simply wrong.
Wasn't there also a planescape book that was awful similar to all the stuff in planescape torment? Some folks claimed he took plenty inspiration from it years ago. Don't really remember the details about this, though, so might as well just have been BS.
Good point. Still, in the end we haven't seen any novels from him, and he sticked to videogame writing.
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Tried to read up on all of this, skimmed a fair bit.
I don't really know what to make of it. I think I'd just prefer to judge Obsidian as it relates to what is relevant, that is: How good are their games (above par for RPGs thus far and one of the few I follow after losing interest in Bioware) and how malignant is their strategy when it comes to releasing? (Fine overall, some of the silly 'editions' nonsense but not microtransactions as with the Deus Ex Mankind Divided crap)
I don't really like getting too involved in internal Obsidian stuff. Maybe CA is telling the truth, maybe he's a jaded employee - either way, what am I supposed to do with it?
I have to agree. While I'm leaning more to believing Chris, and I don't like the picture which is painted of Obsidian's management, in the end I won't boycott the company or something because I like their games. But I understand that someone who worked there, and who founded the company has a different perspective. I assume for Chris, it is not enough to make games which players like. Because it is an industry, and he'd rather have Obsidian's inner workings to be better. And as much as people think that his aim is to make Obsidian suffer or sunk the company, I see it more as a way to force them to change. Putting out the dirty laundry is not the best way, but I don't think he can do much more now, since he is not working there.
Anyway, some more from Chris:
Well, I hope that anyone reading anything I wrote would not accept it blindly. I don't preach, I do want people to question and ask and contradict. And it's fine if they don't agree, and I freely admit I've been wrong countless times.
As for Tim and Leonard (and Jason), I feel that the franchises they created (inc. Bloodlines) resonated with a lot of RPG gamers and shouldn't be ignored, but respected for what this accomplished. That's all I meant - and yes, there might be a large and uncomfortable upfront cost to that, but imo, it would prove itself out over time, and I would support that looking at their work history.
I don't think broken processes always even out at all - but I think there are performers who you should bank on based on their track record because they do things players enjoy.
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Now that part is as good as any music in gaming. Friggin fantastic. I still get goosebumps listening to it.
Companions and Romance
in Pillars of Eternity II: Deadfire Stories (Spoiler Warning!)
Posted
I can agree with this. Miraculously a party of bi characters happened to meet with the player, so at least we should have met some LGB characters out in the world. (of course, not in a into the face way Beamdog and Bioware wrote them in their games).