gigahound

Well, if some of you want to believe that these guys did nothing more than watch from a distance when those past games were in development, that's up to you. As for the MMO thing, you guys who don't want it are entitled to your preference. But some of your arguments don't really make sense, as others have pointed out. "I don't want obsidian to do an MMO cause they suck" just doesn't cut it. I can appreciate that the company is not staffed for a project like that and it is also acceptable that they have no intentions of pursuing such an endeavor, however they certainly could do a quality MMO if backed by a proper philosophy such as Blizzard has operates under. As for what kind of online experience I would like to see, I'd be happy with what I brought up in my first post in this discussion; an FPS style action game such as Hellgate:London, but with a heavier dose of sci-fi. An open and immersive would is nice, but it doesn't have to be as massive as WoW. The key is to have a decent idea with the attitude that it won't be released until it is flippin done and playable, a philosophy that seems to be on a continuing decline with every publisher of pc games, online as well as offline. Obsidian is one of the few entities left who seem to care if their games are playable or not. Anyhow, I'm not knocking anyone's preference, and so far the discussion has remained civil, so I'm happy to keep at it if more people want to chime in.

Ok, maybe I feel like a little debate now. I might have some of the semantics of my understanding wrong, but it doesn't take much research to find that the founding members of Obsidian were involved in those games. Obsidian Entertainment is the first time they all got together as a unique team, but individually each one of them worked on various aspects of those games at different points in their careers. For instance, one of them might have the product development engineer for Fallout2, and one of them might have written much of the story for Planescape:Torment. I understand that they were never a team together before, but each one had a presence in at least one of the the following games: Fallout2 Planescape:Torment Baldurs Gate Baldur's Gate II Icewind Dale Icewind Dale II and the expansions for each. And the research that I did suggests that most of them, if not all of them, did more than just watch from a safe distance. I really tried to hold back, I don't want to be the cause of some great debate, but I did the research...even offered a link in a previous post, all I did was click on the names that the link led to. *shrug* I didn't join these forums back in 2004 because I though Neverwinter's Night or that Star Wars game was that hot, I came here because they came here.

I'm certainly not going to debate endlessly, was just curious. Kinda sad that the company's history is being forgotten, I'm sure I don't have all the details as clear as I once did, but that's the way it goes I guess. Thanks for the discussion folks.

For those not in the know, the founding members of this company were also part of the team(s) who made the Baldur's Gate and Icewind Dale series and just for the guys who thought I wouldn't actually do some research to back up my defense, less than a minute of searching got me this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obsidian_Entertainment. With a little more research I could probably connect this company all the way back to the Fallout games and Planescape Torment. I'm not fully up to speed on current happenings but I've been reading about them for years. I signed on to these boards near the very beginning of this company but they were producing content so slowly I only come here once in a while for an update on their current projects. If you don't like MMOs, that's fine. It's true that most MMOs suck, which is why I'm looking to quality studios to make something that doesn't suck. Someone said that WoW was unremarkable...nearly 10 million gamers seem to disagree, but some of them are only playing because it's the best thing available. The recent offerings run down like this: Hellgate: London's management has given a lay-off to almost every employee, there is talk of an investor taking over to keep the game running. Age of Conan has now seen an over 60% drop in subscriptions and is banning people for discussing the issues, I just read yesterday that investors are letting it go now. Warhammer, still in development, has begun cutting content to meet their launch date...certainly not a good sign. What these games all have in common is not that MMOs suck, but the management teams and publishers have the wrong philosophy; they ship games that simply are not finished and sometimes don't even work out of the box, Age of Conan even had a shipment of games that did not include their access keys for crying out loud. Blizzard proved that an MMO can succeed if it's supported properly. I honestly doubt that Obsidian would go the MMO route, it really is prohibitively expensive and they would be at the mercy of investors and a publisher, but I think it's a good discussion. Also, someone mentioned that if I want a game that works out of the box to go play console games; you sir, are a fool. Anyone who buys a game should expect it to work out of the box, they should also expect some bugs and some systems might not be compatible. There was a D&D game that came out a few years ago, I think it was Pools of Radiance, it had a lot of promise, but the vast majority of people who bought it couldn't play it until a patch was released online. There was a lot of fall out from the incident. A buggy game or insufficient system at player end is not the same as a game that is simply broken out of the box.

Learn to read; I want more quality online experiences. There's precious few to go around and the only ones that had any potential were rushed out the door before they were finished. I want to see quality studios do more quality work that will thrill me longer than a week or two then make me wait another 3-4 yrs for the next quality endeavor. The online market works with the right strategy. Myself and many other people are willing to pay every month for a quality experience but the past couple years all we've been given is unfinished material that sometimes doesn't even work out of the flippin box. I've been following this team since Baldur's Gate. I believe they would give us a great online game. I don't need another Aliens product, or Star Wars product and they don't seem interested in any more generic fantasy RPGs. Millions of online gamers are growing bored with World of Warcraft but everything that has come out since has been less than remarkable. In case you hadn't notice, the traditional pc games market is dying with no sign of a turnaround any time soon. Stop being naive thinking that more online games will sully your own precious entertainment experience. There are enough failures in the online market now that any studio with the right team and philosophy can do a good job if they want to. The only thing Obsidian would have to fear is success. They are a winning team and would only give us a quality online product.

Not-so-patiently waiting for an online game with the FPS nature of Hellgate: London and a more hard core sci-fi theme but with the dedication and quality and philosophy of Blizzard...come on guys, you know you want to...and we all know you could.

Well, I hope I won't have to upgrade for another 4-5 years!!

Got my new system up and running!! I think It's a USA computer. It's blue with some lighting effects on the front, and a clear side panel with a dragon cut-out. At first, Civ III and Morrowind wouldn't work, but when I got my new monitor, Civ III started playing like a dream!! Morrowind still won't work though...I hate the Elder Scrolls games. I wasn't ever able to finish Daggerfall because performance problems either!! Now all I need are some new RPGs that are worth playing. I seem to have lost the first disc for Balder's Gate II...hmmmm. I'm really dissapointed in the current selection of good fantasy RPGs lately, everyone seems to be concentrating on those stupid online games. The CRPGs were holding there own just fine against the platform games, but the online crap seems to be the death knell...

Well, I went for broke and grabbed something off of Ebay. It's a USA Dragon V. It's got all the speed and memory I need plus hyperthreading, dual hard drive, and some other goodies. Only dropped about $500 on it. If there are any problems with it, it'll be well worth fixing. It's also got windows xp home and a windows suite package. Should be here soon, I'll keep you updated on my progress. Also broke down a got a Dell flat screen LCD monitor for less than $200, brand new, not the latest model, I'm sure, but sufficent for my needs. Morrowind and Civ III...here I come!!

Am currently running an emachine w/ 500mhz celeron and 4gigs. Recently added nvidia g-force 4 card hoping to run some recent games...no luck (although some of my older games run better then ever) Last year this machine officially became obsolete as far as games are concerned. Would like to keep the price below a grand. When shopping today and found some new emachines, but they didn't have any open slots for graphics. The store clerks said the current machines aren't for gaming. Was looking at Dells on Ebay and did some research on the integrated graphics chipsets but it seems there's some question as to how well they can actually handle games. Any help here would be appreciated. Would like to someday play Morrowind and CivIII...They're currently collecting dust on my shelf.