Jitawa

I don't it's quite as dichotomous as all that (things rarely are). I realize Infinitron is posting spicy chunks of things from the codex, but Chris appears to give credit to a lot of co-workers for being competent/skilled/etc. He even gives various compliments and credit to the management he's been criticizing, though occasionally in a left-handed fashion. And to other employees (and ex-employees) at various points. As far as Obsidian being more or less dysfunctional than other studios (internally or in terms of finished products), I think that's probably debatable too. The industry itself seems somewhat messed up in terms of expected overtime, crunch, treatment of staff, etc. As far as products, the company has had a reputation for buggy games historically, I don't think that's unknown, since they admitted as much: "Urquhart felt that his company's reputation as a "buggy" developer was fair, and said that while he was proud of what Obsidian had accomplished with New Vegas, he wished that it hadn't been so glitchy when it came out." - here, and other places, iirc Internal issues are a bit harder to judge, though you'll read about various games with troubled development (Mass Effect Andromeda, etc.) as having issues internally. As for the rest of it? The company has lasted long enough that whatever internal issues they've had don't rise to the level of 38 Studios or others that either shuttered after a single title or never released anything.

Huh. Well, I read through the thread on the codex, after seeing the whole thing referenced on /r/games on reddit, then logged into my forum account here to see if it had made its way home. As players, we tend to only know most of these people by their products and interviews. Hard to know what to make of it, really.

The S.O. is a big Critical Role fan. I'll be curious to see how this all tumbles out in practice.

There was something similar to this in Wizardry 7 or so, since it added muskets/blunderbuss weapons. The former could be equipped in the offhand, but only held a single shot; the latter was primary only, but held two shots. The pistols didn't auto-reload, so once you shot your... load, you were out of ammo, and any additional attacks you might've had in that slot didn't happen until you took a turn to reload. So, it worked ok for short encounters or with characters that were attacking from the back-lines that wouldn't be able to take advantage of multiple attacks with an offhand (etc.) too. It was effectively a very situational thing, though you could sometimes justify having a character with dual pistols (that had to reload every other round) on account of the fairly high damage and crit potential. Wizardry 8 made reloading firearms an automatic function iirc, which made the trade-off a non-issue for the most part.

Being "different" at this point would be more on the level of adding completely different new kinds of slots, your scrunchie, monocle, underarm hair braid, prosthetic nose, pinky ring, or decorative leg-band kinds of slots. It would be interesting to add more accessory slots in general, as combining/crunching long lists of effects if amusing to some degree. You could have slots unlocked as a level-up perk (like the weaponry sets), or perhaps class-specific things like a cipher's soul hat or a chanter's bongo-set.

I think VO can add a lot, but partial works pretty well. When I think back on games like Baldur's Gate 2, the elements that were actually voiced by Viconia were sufficient for me to get a good sense of the tone of her dialog and I could hear her in my "head-voice" for most of the non-voiced material. Same with pretty much all the characters. I think we generally care more about voice with characters we might be forming relationships with in some way (Mazzy, Minsc, etc.) than having the innkeepers' lines on local gossip fully-voiced. BG2 had David f'ing Warner as Jon Irenicus, which was great "get" for a video game role imho, but also somewhat expensive I imagine. If you compare the amount of speaking he had to the amount of speaking the Illusive man has in Mass Effect 2 though, there's no real contest. The exposure he had in BG2 was sufficient to establish the character very well. I hope the "limited" VO extends to the level of BG2, but ultimately I just think it's nice to get it to an area where the character's "voice" can be well-established.

I liked both the RPG and action game elements in AP. I was surprised by a lot of the reviews, as in many many playthroughs, the only bugs I encountered tended to be some issues with certain perks popping or some stealth detection anomalies. I even bought two copies back in the day, though to be fair, that was because the pre-order bonuses had been split across retailers (which has never been a great consumer-friendly practice). If there was a second one, I'd be fine with the exact same engine even. I don't think I'd want a kickstarted version of an isometric non-voiced game. While that would be interesting in its own right, I don't think the stealth gameplay or characterization with the V.O. would be the same. As titles go, the voicework went a long way in establishing character and giving life to the timed conversation interactions. I realize voicework and engine are a large part of inflating the costs of development, but I don't think I could discard a 3D engine with some degree of facial animation and workable V.O. were as parts of even a spiritual successor. I don't think a kickstarter would necessarily succeed anyhow. Black Isle games are nostalgia'd to the max for people everywhere, and there's been a serious lack of games with that sort of depth. It's easy to understand the success of Eternity in those terms. I think AP is still a cult favorite at best, and apparently would require more funding to reach the production value-levels I would like. Seems like the best odds involve Obsidian making a pitch that some publisher just can't turn down or something like that. Maybe the PoE release and some of their other projects will give them more bargaining cred. Stick of Truth was well-received and low-bug as well I think?

I backed it at the signed-box tier (250?) and added playing cards (10 I think?). I backed it really early too, and I don't recall the Wasteland 2 or expansion stuff being mentioned when I originally backed. Come to find down the road that I apparently had a Wasteland 2 key sitting around on my pledge page. I'm not sure if I have the expansion included by default too, but it would seem likely that the expansion would be added before an entirely separate game. I also didn't know I was getting into some sort of Backer Beta (I've religiously avoided info on the game in the spirit of being completely surprised at release, because discovering a new world is part of the enjoyment of playing an RPG, imho). All in all, I'd say I've had lots of pleasant surprises at my tier. My only regret, if you can call it that, is that I kinda wish I'd ordered a separate/additional collector's/standard box because my OCD-tendencies with respect to my game collection will be conflicted by the presence of an otherwise pristine copy that is covered in signatures. That is... I wanted a signed copy, clearly, but I'd also like a very normal looking copy for the shelf where the signatures don't obscure the artwork and such.

I like most of what I've seen so far (on the wiki) about gods. I always get a kick out of visiting the home "domain" or area of a deity, even if only briefly. If worship of the gods is more lax in this day and age, it would be interesting to see what becomes of their plane.

I see no reason to leave it out. I wouldn't make any special efforts for blood geysers though.

As much as I loved Planescape: Torment (I'd love a sequel) and Alpha Protocol (the combat lacked some polish, but the RPG elements were superb), I don't think you should be beholden to any sort of particular IP. I imagine the licenses and strictures of certain IPs present their own expense issues (You don't own Planescape or Alpha Protocol I imagine). Aside from thinking an actual Shadowrun RPG would be cool (surely that license went cheap after FASA killed it?), I think a new IP is a cool idea. What I LOVE about Obsidian is the quality of the storytelling, the depth of the characters and dialog, and the extent to which you make that interaction a part of the game. I think you've run afoul of deadlines and issues with other people's engine's in the past. Your strength has always been there though. Even industry "leaders" like Bioware can't touch you when it comes to dialog/characters. While alot of people enjoy them, I think Bioware falls in "Bioware-isms" with their characters, and you get cliches,repetition, laziness, etc. To reiterate, I don't think the engine or IP necessarily matter. It's about doing what you do best. Though I think it should attempt to be at least "kinda" modern in terms of support/platform (support HD resolutions, possibly console release if that's not too painful).

If you make the case that such accuracy at range would detract from the pistol, they could always scale the assault rifle's skill cost up (if it was going to be the "best"). As is, pistol and AR already outclass the shotgun by a fair margin, which is just too situational to be as useful. Maxed pistol has pretty crazy range on it's critical hits, and you can make them from cover without risking your hide. Chain shot would allow you to line up.. what... up to 7 critical shots at leisure with time stopped? The AR doesn't even come close to that sort of power. AR is the only true "long range" weapon, but late skill-level, the pistol can handle criticals at... 40 meters I think, which is more range than pretty much everything you'll be shooting at in the game. The AR crits require you not be in cover, possibly as a trade-off for the range? In any event, the part that's especially annoying, is that the game tracks your accuracy, and there's the deadeye perk for being over 90% I believe. The SMG and shotgun already present serious issues as far as missing. The assault rifle can line up a super accurate headshot, but since you can only fire in burst - 2 out of 3 bullets hit nothing after the first kills the guy. I ask the question because of balance... right now, the scales are tipped heavily in favor of the pistol.

Semi-auto is a feature found on almost every assault rifle made (excepting some full-auto models I think). Why then, with the only long range weapon in the game, are you stuck with burst fire? It makes it considerably more difficult to be parsimonious with special ammunition like subsonic.

There was a patch/mod I DLed awhile back that made the Visas-feels-your-presence movie rendered in-engine. For some reason, that's what I was expecting to happen to all the movies. Nice gesture either way.

well, I'm surprised...

Am I going crazy or did that little dancing Green-devil Hello Kitty thing used to be part of Hades's Avatar a long time ago? Maybe I'm just misremembering things.

Duffman is thrusting in the direction of the problem.

The funny thing is, is that this situation is not new. It's been happening for years. You had no problem supporting it a year ago though. And now you ostracize those that stuck to their guns like you did a year a go. Tsk tsk. I think I'll hold on to this quote for safe keeping. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> These aren't RPGs that came out in the past year, but I thought all three of the last Wizardry's were slick, bug-free, and well supported (not that they needed support since they shipped in great condition). The last one came out in 2001 or so though, and had a rather long development cycle. That's what I prefer really, a long development cycle and a bug-free game. It's always bothered me that some people will say that if all the fans hadn't been demanding the game immediately, they wouldn't have released the game too early... as if anticipation were a bad thing, and developers were slaves of message board trolls.

doesn't happen with the box, since the xbox was never patched the only patch released by LA/obsidian introduced several bugs

you need Miles Sound Player to play the sounds from streamvoice & such, though you'd have to search around a bit to find quotes that you want I would think.

Actually, they're not separate, check the Free-Gizka site, they released several bug fixes. More bug fixes I would say, than extra content at this point. http://www.team-gizka.org/downloads.html

I should mention it's also not uncommon for a game to be left as an unsupported buggy mess. Though this is more common with games that do poorly, or developers that go under. Tribes:Vengeance for instance, got next to no support for it's bugs, and the Vivendi Universal came out and said - "the game sold too poorly to justify the expenditures necessary for Q&A on a new patch, sorry, we will never patch this game, and if you decide never to buy our games again based on this, so be it" (that's loosely paraphrased). When Troika went under, it could no longer render patches for Vampire:Masquerade. However, I was under the impression that Obsidian was still around, and KoTOR:2 sold well.

Are you referring to unofficial patches? They're fairly common. Obviously, two factors need to be in place to necessitate an unofficial patch. The game needs to have a bunch of errors, and the publisher needs to be refusing an official patch for some reason. You already gave one example, and I can think of others. Wizards & Warriors, the DW Bradley game was rife with bugs upon release, and Activision was dragging their feet on the patch. The developers pulled together and did a patch on their own time -- without cash from Activision. Ultima:9 was a buggy mess upon release. EA both enforced a release date before the developers wanted it, and didn't allow for patches. Anonymous team members released the last patch (related to bugs anyhow). The game still sucks, but developers did make an unofficial release. So, developers do make unofficial patches. Troika is probably a bad example (a good one?) since they went under for making buggy games. I'd assume progress on the cut content would move faster if the fans had access to development tools. Perhaps that's a poor assumption.

I wasn't suggesting that they personally release an unofficial content patch if they have a legal hamstring, but they COULD help the fans that are already working on it, on the sly so to speak. That way, the patch comes sooner, but there are no real legal ramifications since the fans are releasing it, not them. They're at fault for the timetable since they agreed to it in the first place, and if LA was able to cut it short by three months without them having any real bargaining power -- then they also were showing a lack of good sense in signing a contract that allowed a publisher to do such. As far as unofficial patches for bug fixes, the game could still use quite a few of those as well.

I blame them both. Even if you could say Obsidian is powerless to act, and Lucasarts are just being wankers.... ultimately you have to at least concede that Obsidian put themselves into the situation where they're powerless. Also, as you mentioned with Troika (and others), even when official support is lacking... developers often are able to pick up the slack and release "unofficial" patches. Hell, if they just spent some time collaborating with the Free-Gizka crew that would speed that project along considerably. The time involved in reverse-engineering a game to figure out how to put in lost content is vastly larger than the time taken with a little developer assistance.