Revan91

VGChartz is terrible and totally inaccurate, guys. D:OS console port was more successful than WL2, but even that was not enough to make Larian promise to make the sequel on both PC and console at release. They preferred to focus on PC first, because that's where their game sold a lot and where (most of) their fans are. Just getting even isn't enough, companies want to make profits, otherwise the investment is not worth it. By the way, another slap on the backers' face by Fargo (after the terrible handling of the beta). Sure, there's been a lot of bad signs on this project since Saunders' strange departure. Also, Fargo in 2013: GG. Even though I am not pleased about their decision to put their resources to port these games to consoles (because I would like them put those resources to make more PC games), but at least they don't put money the got from backers to make those ports. In other words backers paid development of PC version and publishers paid porting said games to consoles. You know that for sure? Right now, this move it's just a big "**** you" to their backers and supporters who donated their money after the promise of delivering a solid PC old-school rpg. Also, there's no way of knowing whose money goes in this useless port, so it would've been better and more honest to deliver the PC version and use the money you received (and the ones the devs poured out of their pocket) to stand to your word and deliver the best game you can. Instead, they did this, which in the best scenario will not affect the game and the PC version and will just be a waste of money that could've been used on making it better/longer/with more branching storylines/etc. To make it worse, while other devs are honest from the start with their intentions, Fargo tried to sell himself as the champion and saviour of true CRPGs when it was useful to gain money on Kickstarter, but is yet again proving that it was just a facade. Just getting even isn't enough, companies want to make profits, otherwise the investment is not worth it. By the way, another slap on the backers' face by Fargo (after the terrible handling of the beta). Sure, there's been a lot of bad signs on this project since Saunders' strange departure. Also, Fargo in 2013: GG. Even though I am not pleased about their decision to put their resources to port these games to consoles (because I would like them put those resources to make more PC games), but at least they don't put money the got from backers to make those ports. In other words backers paid development of PC version and publishers paid porting said games to consoles. You know that for sure? Right now, this move it's just a big "**** you" to their backers and supporters who donated their money after the promise of delivering a solid PC old-school rpg. Also, there's no way of knowing whose money goes in this useless port, so it would've been better and more honest to deliver the PC version and use the money you received (and the ones the devs poured out of their pocket) to stand to your word and deliver the best game you can. Instead, they did this, which in the best scenario will not affect the game and the PC version and will just be a waste of money that could've been used on making it better/longer/with more branching storylines/etc. To make it worse, while other devs are honest from the start with their intentions, Fargo tried to sell himself as the champion and saviour of true CRPGs when it was useful to gain money on Kickstarter, but is yet again proving that it was just a facade.

Just getting even isn't enough, companies want to make profits, otherwise the investment is not worth it. By the way, another slap on the backers' face by Fargo (after the terrible handling of the beta). Sure, there's been a lot of bad signs on this project since Saunders' strange departure. Also, Fargo in 2013: GG.

The interviewer is so ****ing incompetent. Learning something about the game and the developer you're going to interview takes too much effort, I guess.

RTwP requires a lot of micromanaging usually, so the gameplay style only works with mouse and keyboard. Also, the console crowd doesn't seem so eager to play this type of games (neither D:OS nor WL2 conversions were much successful). Which is fine by me, since the game seems already dumbed down enough, without it being simplified even more to appeal the PS4/XO players.

Dragon Age's setting is **** and so are the games themselves, with the sole exception of Origins. I for one expect better from Obsidian. Also, what you say about strenght not needed to kill effectively is right today, much less so in a world where duels are fought with swords, axes and spears. Btw, you're not answering any of the points I've been making in my posts, you're just repeating the same things such as "other players accept the premise o' gender equality" so "is not a genuine issue", which has nothing to do with what was debated here. First, you implied that I wanted to penalised female players from creating strong characters while I've never said that, now you're insisting on D&D 3.0 and its character creations rules which have nothing to do with worldbuilding and ignoring everything else when convenient, again. Fool me once shame on me, fool me twice... go on if you like, I'm done wasting my time with this nonsense.

highlighted is untrue. as o' 3e, the d&d rules specifically note that women (not just pc women) is as strong as men in greyhawk (the core d&d world at 3e release.) subsequent editions have followed suit. pathfinder has also stated in their rules that women is equal strong. while we ain't read pathfinder or d&d novels o' the past 20 years, the game worlds 'pon which they is based is normalizing male and female strength. am unsure of dragon age lore, but we would be incredible surprised if the biowarian social progressives had not made special note that women is equal to men in all things in their world. all o' which is complete beside the point 'course. the initial revan complaint is largely meaningless with recognition that tyranny, like so many other fantasy rpgs, would be ill-advised to handicap women players who wish to play their women characters equal strong as men. the fact that there is equal numbers o' women seeming represented in tyranny world military units is about as non a factor as a non-factor can possible be. is admitted not possible in real life. so what? in a fantasy world where developers control the biology and the physics, why wouldn't they create equality? misplaced notions o' verisimilitude? is a freaking game... a fantasy game. HA! Good Fun! I'm not advocating for giving strenght penalties for females during character creation or anything like that, I've spent more than enough time arguing about why having so many women in armies is incoherent (while on the other hand they would have the same chances as any man to become good spies, diplomats, rulers and whatever) and doubly so in a world dominated by an evil overlord who should care only about having the strongest soldiers possible, not about social equality (which also, as devs and players should considered, makes little sense in settings culturally as advanced as Medieval or Roman/Greek times, where the opinion on social issues was quite different than today, but this is a separate topic). I think I've provided enough arguments and examples to support my thesis, but I can see that we're not going anywhere If I have to continue to state the same things other and other because "it's a fantasy, they can do whatever they want". It's not a very big issue, either, it makes the world less believable but the game can still be good (or great, hopefully) regardless.

I was thinking about games, movies or books, not p&p rulesets (by the way, the older D&D versions had inferior strenght cap for females - they removed them in the newer versions just to allow players to create every character they want, I guess -, and also I've not read stories based on D&D settings but I do think that most of the regular soldiers are men, as it is in games such as BG, IWD and NWN). For example, in The Wheel of Time women usually hold more power than men, but that is because they can use magic while men go mad after using saidin for a while (and so are forbidden to use it or hunted down). Regular soldiers are men, there are women that go to war with them but they are sorceresses. There's pretty much the same situation in The Witcher series (Triss, Yennefer, Philippa and the Lodge are arguably more powerful than Geralt, but their source of power is magic, not their combat prowess and the regular fighters/soldiers are men). Then again, there are women who rise up to become good fighters in many fantasy stories (Eowin in LOTR, Brienne in ASOIAF, etc.) but they are not common and don't represent the average woman (who shares the pros and cons and the traits of real world's women). In LOTR women were forbidden to take arms, and Éowyn just decided **** such nonsense and not just prove that she was capable warrior but that she was able to defeat Witch King immortal entity that had blighted Middle Earth for time of first war of the Rings (several thousands of years). Book don't give any information of prowess of other women in battle field. Although Galadriel is told to be one of the most powerful beings in the Middle Earth and that if she takes the One ring, then Sauron's rule would have been just cakewalk. And whole books point from start to beginning is not underestimate people and what they are capable to do. The Witcher series also has Ciri, who is as just capable in fighting as Geralt, of course magic from her elven heritage helps, but Geralt is magically mutated creature that also wields magic. But again Witcher's world is one where women's role isn't to be warriors, but in Skellige people don't seem to even bat an eye for idea of warrior woman, so they aren't some strange unicorns that pop-up once in the millennium. And if we look other fantasy worlds like for example Celano series' world there isn't any men because they all died in past because they weren't good enough (because of genetic tinkering of one person that really hated men). Lyremouth Chronicles' world where women are strongest people that exists (although it is only true in one part of the world other parts are controlled by wizards that don't care about person' gender) Meaning that they are fantasy worlds and their authors can make any changes to rules that they want to make, and if you only look fantasy world made men then you most likely find results that reflect ideas that men stronger, more capable, actual heroes, etc. just because nature of people. Eowin defeats the King of the Nazguls, yes, but she's aided by Merry who stabs him in the back, giving her the chance to finish him. She's as strong as most men by the way, but she's not by any means the typical woman in the LOTR setting. Galadriel is more powerful than Aragorn, Gimli, Boromir or Legolas, but that's because of her magic powers (and also she has one of the three elven rings). You're right about the point of the book being that even the most (apparently) unimportant people (--> hobbits) are capable of achieving the most heroic deeds, though. In TW, Ciri is good with a sword but definetely not in league with Geralt or the other witchers, if only because she hasn't endured the mutations and so she hasn't superhuman strenght and agility like them. Still, she's the most powerful being in the universe because of her blood and her magic. I don't know the other examples you've provided, honestly. But actually I think is a given that the average man is larger and stronger than the average woman, that doesn't mean that he'll be more powerful, rich or anything because there are plenty of possibilities to achieve power (that doesn't revolve around mere strenght or military training) especially in a fantasy world, it's just that it'll be easier for him to be a competetent soldier. It's possible to make a story where that is subversed and women are stronger, taller and larger because of whatever reason, and in that case they would be more inclined to the military life than men. But when it's not clearly stated in the premise, it's clear that men and women are modeled after their real life's counterparts and share their basic traits, although the cultural values may change significantly. Ok, that's some good reflection. Now what about the Amazons? I'm no expert about them, actually. I only know they practiced self-mutilation (the removal of one breast) to increase their combat effectiveness.

Well, female fighting characters (either ones you fight as, with, or against) are certainly treated the same as male fighting characters in D&D - at least, I think so. Fighting characters are not the only type of characters in D&D, though, and on a wider overview, I don't think you could really consider that principle to stand up to any great degree... Yup. You're character is created, not randomly sampled, so she doesn't need to represent a typical member of society. You can play a Nikki Fuller-type character if you want. Revan is stating that in the typical fantasy universe, females are weaker than males. I don't see any evidence of that in D&D, at least that I've seen. I was thinking about games, movies or books, not p&p rulesets (by the way, the older D&D versions had inferior strenght cap for females - they removed them in the newer versions just to allow players to create every character they want, I guess -, and also I've not read stories based on D&D settings but I do think that most of the regular soldiers are men, as it is in games such as BG, IWD and NWN). For example, in The Wheel of Time women usually hold more power than men, but that is because they can use magic while men go mad after using saidin for a while (and so are forbidden to use it or hunted down). Regular soldiers are men, there are women that go to war with them but they are sorceresses. There's pretty much the same situation in The Witcher series (Triss, Yennefer, Philippa and the Lodge are arguably more powerful than Geralt, but their source of power is magic, not their combat prowess and the regular fighters/soldiers are men). Then again, there are women who rise up to become good fighters in many fantasy stories (Eowin in LOTR, Brienne in ASOIAF, etc.) but they are not common and don't represent the average woman (who shares the pros and cons and the traits of real world's women).

Again, do we know for sure that is the case in Tyranny's world? Is there even one game, movie or book where it is not such a case? Can you name some examples? You're confusing realism with verisimilitude (or world consistency). If I make a world where there are dragons and monsters, it doesn't mean that I can also make people fly just because it's a fantasy.

It's okay to have equal options for male and female at character creation. It's a game, and adding gender bonuses and penalties would be mostly a waste of devs' time (and people would probably complain that his/her character is penalised and it's not fair). That doesn't mean that, since you've simplified your games' systems, you should make the world completely incoherent though since the systems have very little to do with worldbuilding or narrative. Having armies filled women is stupid. Even in fantasy they're still weaker than their males counterpart, they have other advantages but strenght is definetely not one of them. Some women could overcome their physical inferiority and become good warriors, and that's fine, but most men will remain more effective soldiers. There are plenty of other ways to make powerful female characters in fantasy, without disrupting the world's credibility.

That is not necessarily true. I've read books set in worlds where humans are not exactly identical to humans from Earth, even if very similar. Who is to say it isn't the case in Tyranny's setting? And in those books women are usually taller, larger and stronger? I don't think so.

The fact that some women can train themselves and defeat males in battle/combat does not mean that the average woman is stronger than a man nor that she's more apt to military activities. Also, Tiranny being a fantasy game does not make any less dumb having elite soldier groups or amies filled with women. Humans in fantasy games and books have the same physical traits than us real humans, so men are usually taller, larger and stronger (and anyone who has spent even one day in his/her life practicing or even watching some martial arts/combat sport knows how much those traits are important... spoiler: it's why we have weight classes in boxing, MMA, etc.). Some women could become good fighters, but most will just be worse than the average dude and will have to make other career paths (be it something that involves politics and intrigues, magic, charming, and so on), possibly gaining even more money and power than by joining the army.

****ing feminist pandering all but one of the people in positions of authority are women what about the menz The weird thing is that half of this military groups seem to be composed by women, which makes little sense since men are physically stronger and therefore are generally better soldiers. I mean, yeah, it's possible to have some skilled female fighters but so many of them? No way. And I'm not against having some powerful women in fantasy (or other genres, for that matter) games, but making them equal to men in mere physical strenght is beyond retarded.

That would be very interesting. Hopefully Feargus will actually let him do it.

The guys at Obsidian probably deserve it tbh the more chrisA posts such stuff, the more he yields whatever moral high ground he mighta' once held a claim to. the twitter and interview sniping that chrisA indulges in, knowing full well that obsidian has not and will not respond, is getting extreme old. am actual curious why, given the 'mount o' time that has elapsed since his obsidian departure, some folks keep posting chrisA's one-sided slappy fight with his former colleagues. HA! Good Fun! You know what I like about Avellone compared to other Obsidian devs? His honesty. He's never afraid to say what he thinks. It was fun back when he was still there and posted a bunch of behind the scenes stuff (like the Metacritic bonus, which was a smart move from him that had improved Obsidian's reputation incredibly). Lol, honesty from the guy who recently just said that he was jealous of Siege of Dragonspear's writing?

I'd like to play a gay character too, and I hope you would be allowed to do it, but get executed or something if you're caught for realism's sake. I don't know if they would be willing to do something as dark as this though. Anyway I think something like this is unlikely right now, considering Sawyer is currently knee deep in Pillars 2. Obsidian isn't exactly pro-romance, so you probably wouldn't get a chance to have sex with other guys, but beyond that nothing prevents from making a gay character even in that kind of setting. I mean, it's your character after all. It's not that Obsidian is against romance, it's just that they're a lot more subtle about it than most other developers. There was basically romance in Mask of the Betrayer and KotOR 2, even if the characters weren't kissing eachother awkwardly Bioware-style. And New Vegas had all those Lady Killer and Confirmed Bachelor dialogue options to hit on a bunch of people. Sawyer has said many times that he doesn't like romances and the way they're usually made in games. Avellone before him had pretty much the same stance on romances, now he's no longer at Obsidian but still every time an Obs developer has spoken about romances they weren't really praising them. Yes, MotB had romances and even KotOR II and NWN2 had some kind of romances, but it's clearly not a key feature for Obsidian games, and thankfully so I might add. In New Vegas you can have sex with certain NPCs (mostly just prostitutes btw, most of the perks options just let you flirt with some guys or gals and have discounts or some bonus items, etc.), but there's no romance whatsoever in the game. I'm pretty sure New Vegas had more gay characters than any Bioware game. NV has Arcade and Veronica, in ME3 and DAI there are a lot more LGBT characters though. Anyway, just to be clear, it's perfectly okay to have gay characters in games. It's not okay to forcedly include LGBT characters even when they don't make any sense in the game world, just because you want to please a niche of your audience that want/like/demand those things. Also, I think is weird to see so many openly gay characters in games based on Medieval Europe (fantasy games as well), since it wasn't exactly easy to live as a gay in those times, while certainly in modern or futuristic settings that would not be unrealistic. But we're off topic and LGBT and romances aren't really interesting topics to discuss here.

I'd like to play a gay character too, and I hope you would be allowed to do it, but get executed or something if you're caught for realism's sake. I don't know if they would be willing to do something as dark as this though. Anyway I think something like this is unlikely right now, considering Sawyer is currently knee deep in Pillars 2. Obsidian isn't exactly pro-romance, so you probably wouldn't get a chance to have sex with other guys, but beyond that nothing prevents from making a gay character even in that kind of setting. I mean, it's your character after all. With that said, I would really hate to see Obsidian go the BioWare way and focus that much on romances and/or include all that LGBT useless sh1t in their games, especially the half of your party is gay/bisex thing (they're just a small percentile of the global population after all).

Exactly. Also, PoE had the goal to evoke the BG1 feeling with a somewhat low-level adventure in which you can die even against simple animals at the start. I don't think they want to do that again with a sequel, in fact Josh already said he'd like to explore more weird locations in Eternity 2.

I don't believe this is the case. The setting/being fantasy or not or syfy or not etc is little to do with smaller or bigger audience. It will come down to what type of game it is and how well its gameplay then maybe story-writing. If it's an AAA fps/tps game than it will attract a lot more people regardless of it being realistic history/fantasy/syfy/PA etc. if a realistic RPG in Roman period would be done in the style of PoE with the same budget, it wouldn't be a lot more nor a lot less successful than PoE IMO. Movies were around long before games, it would be a lot more clear what most people wants from movies by this time than what people wants from games and there are a lot more realistic history movies or realistic movies than there are fantasy movies, so why do we assume most people wants fantasy when it comes to gaming? Well, it's what most publishers think and have repeated over the course of the years, but I agree with you if you say there's room for other settings as well, just as I said in my first post. Anyway, I believe the game, in Josh Sawyer's mind, was to be an isometric rpg with turn combats (or real time with pause), not an AAA production, and I think it could be a very interesting project with some familiar elements (the top-down view and maybe the engine from PoE) but also unique because of the setting that we don't usually see in games. Kingdom Come may help to prove that people likes a historical setting, however it's a very different kind of game from what Obsidian or at least Sawyer would probably do for their own historical rpg. Still, I, for one, am looking forward to see what will come out of Deliverance, it seems a promising game.

Well, the title is already pretty clear, but I've read many Sawyer's interviews in which he said how he would love to make a real historical rpg someday, preferably set in the Holy Roman Empire around the 15th and 16th centuries, basically a Darklands spiritual heir. I personally am very fascinated by what could be done in that kind of setting and game, and I think I'm not the only one who feels this way. As much as I loved PoE and am eager to see a proper sequel in the next years (hopefully sooner rather than later!), I also believe that Obsidian (and other developers) should explore different settings as well, since there are far too many fantasy and basically no one is making a true historical rpg (aside from Kingdom Come, which is a completely different product, though), so it may be an interesting opportunity for the company as well. Here, on these very forums, many people expressed their desires to see more games based on other settings in the future (to be honest, I'd like to have more sci-fi games, or a new Vampire, or an Alpha Protocol heir as well), so the usual assumption that rpg fans only enjoy fantasy games and therefore you have to make one if you hope to make money is wrong. Granted, the game would probably resonate with a smaller audience than PoE, D:OS or TToN, but it wouldn't need a higher budget than any of these games (maybe even less than PoE because Obsidian already has the engine and the tech side covered thanks to their work with Eternity), so I don't think it would be too risky a project for the company from a business point of view, on the contrary I think it could prove to be still profitable. Besides, we don't really know how big that market is since there is no game like that, it could target some of the people that like historical games like the Total Wars (for example, I have friends who don't usually play rpgs but love medieval or roman settings and would definetely play a game set in those times even if it's not their prefered genre, I know it's not really a good sample or anything but nonetheless I believe many other people feel the same way). Maybe the project could be funded through a new crowdfunding campaign, to see how well it resonates with people, if Obsidian is not sure if the pitch would sell well. Despite all the business considerations that are not really my things, though, I think it could be a very interesting project for your fans and for the rpg genre as a whole. Besides, one of your most talented guys has repeatedly stated how that's his dream rpg project and he did an excelent work on both New Vegas and Pillars of Eternity, so why not give him another chance?

The skeleton screenshot reminds me of Myrkul in MotB. Considering that it was one of the best dialogues/scenes in that game I can only hope that this new area will be of the same quality.

Two biggest problems with fo4 are the voiced protagonist, which adds nothing to the game due to its first person nature and limits dialogue. And the perk/skill overhaul which reduces gameplay depth. Since its essentially the same engine as fallout 3/new vegas I don't think it would be too hard to bring skills back, and the dialogue system is easily fixed by not having a voiced protagonist. So we could pretty easily get a game on the level of New Vegas at least Thing is, I believe Bethesda wouldn't allow Obsidian to change so much the direction they have taken with the series. They decided that Fallout needs to be more cinematic and less complex, so the future games will probably have to follow that direction too, just as New Vegas could only features somewhat minor changes to the systems and gameplay. But, despite Bethesda's efforts to ruin the Fallout series, I think Obsidian would still be able to make a proper rpg (although with less complex systems).

Josh has already said on twitter that Louisiana is not a new Fallout.

Well, PoE 2 will definitely happen in the future, and maybe we will know something not so long after the release of The White March II. FNV was fantastic in a lot of ways, so it would be good to see another Fallout from Obsidian (after all, they're the ones who worked on the originals... and now they even have Tim Cain in the team), although they would still have to work with the ****ty framework left by Bethesda, which won't likely let them make any major changes to the systems, the engine, gameplay style, etc... but nonetheless it would be good to play a real Fallout again. KotOR or some other SW rpg would be cool, although the most influential guy behind KotOR II's designs and story was MCA, and he's no longer working with Obsidian. Also, since the deal between Disney and EA that's just not gonna happen anyway. An rpg in the style of Vampire: Bloodlines would be great, I sure hope they'll talk about it with Paradox. Beyond all these IPs, though, I'd like to see even more new IPs from Obsidian, exploring other settings: it would be cool to have some sci-fi stories, another spy-rpg, some historical rpg, maybe even a spaghetti-western rpg could be cool!

Great article. About KotOR III, I hope they get the chance to make it, finally, or at least some kind of spiritual heir if they can't continue the storyline of the first two games.