Gromnir

according to some news sources, kotor for xbox broke all kinds of initial sales records. within first 2 weeks, kotor had sold over 270,000 units... in fact, the initial release effectively sold out within the first week. publisher was scrambling to make more copies to meet demand. on this board, an obsidian employee responded to a querry 'bout kotor pc sales... said that pc totals for kotor pc had reached 500,000 by the end of the year. kotor pc had only been on shelves since november. ... HA! Good Fun!

actually, we suspect that the term ain't so commonly understood as all that. use linear/non-linear when talking to an author 'bout story and they is gonna have a very differnt notion 'bout what you means than will a game designer. see, regardless of notions 'bout chronological linearity, an author generally starts his story on page 1, and ends on final page, and each page in between is where it is for a very good reason. if you were to ask an author to write a story where the order of pages not make no difference, or where sequence of plot points was purposefully left unimportant so that story would work just as well regardless of order of events, he would probably look at you as if you were nuts. we s'pose that those "choose your adventure" books might be considered literature that is non-linear in a similar sense as is games, but even that ain't quite right. *shrug* non-linear is a commonly misunderstood term. HA! Good Fun! p.s. we has seen some attempts at true non-linear storytelling... and they is... odd.

the most important game element is whichever element the developers failed most badly at incorporating effectively into a given game. obviously the most important element is different for each game... mostly. HA! Good Fun!

is like voting in china... takes all the confusion out of the process with only one candidate available. HA! Good Fun!

we never get a chance to start over. those of us who is optimistic 'bout obsidian is optimistic not 'cause they has wiped slate clean, but 'cause they (we) see something in the obsidian folks that makes 'em believe that you guys can make a good game... and that optimism is based on what you has done in the past. most of us here at this moment is here 'cause of some past history we gots with games made by obsidian folks while they was at bis, and even the name, obsidian, calls to mind the company's past as black isle. there is many folks on this board, and more than a few in this thread, that believe that a good console rpg cannot be made. the reason they believe this is 'cause they has not liked any of the console rpgs they has played in past... or maybe they said they liked 'em at first and then changed their minds for whatever reason. regardless, folks make assumptions 'bout future based on their experience gained in the past. likewise, folks will bring their personal baggage along with them. we has seen folks whose actions on this board has already belied their statements in this thread. is too bad, but so what? was inevitable. hopefully our shared interest in future games will overcome whatever silliness we has created in past, and you got some mods who can step in and crack a few heads if necessary... 'cause it will be necessary. is no chance to start over, but for Gromnir, we not see no need. you gots some good folks working at obsidian, and we is curious to see what you produce... am always more curious 'bout the games being developed than the silly games people play on the boards. good luck. HA! Good Fun!

"Compliments from Grom?" we compliment folks all the time... is not that unusual. however, to see us compliment folks we had previously written off as incompetent is more than a little unusual. such reevaluation is either the result of some sea change on part of the incompetent in question, or requires that Gromnir admit that he was wrong... wrong, wrong, wrong. neither possibility particularly appeals to us, but we concede that the latter is the more likely of the two. HA! Good Fun!

the post script concerning vis was not part of our original post... was a couple posts later in the thread, and we did not want it to be missed. *shrug* does it really matter? HA! Good Fun!

mean? nah, but it was predictable. *shrug* HA! Good Fun!

repost from bioware boards: most consumers not know or care who or what obsidian is. the geeks who post here know who uncle fergie and chris a is, but the average purchaser will not. working on such a huge title as first project gives obsidian exposure. even if obsidian deal were for almost no money it would still be a deal worth selling fergie's soul over 'cause regardless of what obsidian does, kotor 2 will sell HUNDREDS of THOUSANDS of copies. ... if fergie pulled this deal off, and obsidian is in fact working on kotor 2, we think that he deserves some kinda special award. for a new development company to get a shot at doing what is guaranteed to be one of the most anticipated crpg sequels ever is without precedent. we recently had to reevaluate our opinion of james ohlen, and now it looks like we might have to do the same with fergie. what is next? will martin lawrence give an oscar caliber performance this year? will vis start writing reviews that is intelligent, objective, witty? *shrug* as we becomes older and more set in our ways, we becomes more and more disturbed by such unexpected and unlikely changes in things we believed was immutable. HA! Good Fun! p.s. on a more serious side, we does observe that while we not like vis reviews, he has attempted to remain objective and rational... abandoning much of his board fanaticism when he does such reviews. end repost 'cause we had to admit saying such things eventually. HA! Good Fun!

as a fencer of some two and a half decades, we mumbles "coup fourre" in our sleep and at work and during sex even... which is no doubt disconcerting, but point taken. we just love that we would be using a bis developer's post in such a way... never get tired of appreciating the irony. HA! Good Fun!

so, ps:t success or failure is a valid topic to be discussing after all? *shrug* as recently as during jefferson development, we was still hearing that while there would be loads of character development and interaction, it wouldn't have as much of that stuff as in ps:t. this was not stated as a condemnation of jefferson, but rather as a way to reassure folks, potential customers, that mistakes made in ps:t would not be repeated in future games. even bis developers who liked ps:t and thought it was great, was still recognizing its value as a cautionary tale for future developers and publishers... a cautionary tale which bioware largely ignored. we can speculate on how much word of mouth might possibly have created an additional market or how many of those sales was disappointed folks much like original purchasers often seemed to be. though we do not that it is not like the ip/bis ps:t boards became ever more increasingly popular. is lots of speculation going on, but what is a known is that ps:t did not sell very well initially, and it took many years to finally break even... by which time it had already done ip more harm than good. would ps:t2 be different? it might, but if setting not matter, as you suggest, then why would you take a risk on such a title... obsidian folks might like another crack at ps, but how many publishers is gonna wanna take that risk? once obsidian gets some dough, maybe they can do as irrational is doing with freedom force 2

josh ain't at obsidian, and neither will you see bri or puuk posting with obsidian tag. darren and dave occasionally posted at ip/bis, and fergie would post when it looked like things was melting down, but if the guys at obsidian post as frequent as they did on other boards, we won't have near as much fan/developer interaction as maybe some has come to expect. 'course, maybe the more taciturn folks at obsidian has become real chatterboxes over the last few months... HA! Good Fun!

oh come now. is you saying that if ps:t had sold as well as BG or even iwd it might not have gotten a sequel? btw, "a) It wasn't successful in their opinion... but successful enough to rerelease it," the costs to release a game that has already been developed, and then to sell at $9 a pop is hardly indicative of the title

well, considering the fact that bis never made a sequel when they had the license, we expect that reasons for ps:t failure is a valid issue indeed when somebody talks 'bout resurrecting the title. HA! Good Fun! p.s. as the link will take you to nma, please know ahead of time that you is gonna get some profanity n' such. http://www.nma-fallout.com/forum/viewtopic...ighlight=#23414 bri is a former bis developer now working at pandemic.

repost:

"except in the "i want to be a mod" thread, the athmosphere here was good" am not sure that the obsidians would agree. as they said already, they want a teen rating. please note the following: "Golden rule: Be nice, stay on topic, and everything will be fine." am not sure what board you has been watching, but seraphim has been following this one it seems, "Point taken regarding the 'old english', however I don't feel they're too restrictive. In fact, I don't think they're restrictive enough based on this weekend's activity, but that's not my call." *shrug* HA! Good Fun!

as we noted elsewhere, it ain't the rules that matter, but how you enforce 'em. ever seen the constitution for the people's republic of china? if you was some alien and you look at u.s. constitution and you look at china's constitution you would probably think that a citizen of china gots lots more freedom. *shrug* as long as you is reasonable and apply rules fairly and predictably, we doubt any but a few nuts and vulgarians will complain. HA! Good Fun!

hmmm we not have many problems with the bis board before merger. there was some occasional situations that gives one pause, and occasionally the moderation seemed to have all the predictability of a lightning strike (e.g. the mysterious man banning, and the fallout that ensued,) but for the most part, as long as people maintained the board pg rating and avoided direct insults of ip/bis folks, things ran smooth 'nuff. good luck... you seem to have work cut out for you following this weekend test run. HA! Good Fun!

to give us some perspective, which old boards do you reference... seeing as how these is the first obsidian boards? there was the old ip boards that had many incarnations, and then there was the bis boards... and then a return to ip. personally, we thought that slyle and decamber did a pretty good job of things, but each board incarnation seemed to be treated different. HA! Good Fun!

only takes 3 things to makes games... far as we seen. 1) an indefinite number of creative folks that did not score well 'nuff on their gmat/gre/lsat/mcat to go on and get real education/job. 2) a lever (a person or otherwise,) to motivate folks that is, by their nature or upbringing, slackers. 3) money. money can buy you training and gives you time to develop a product and it makes available all sort of resources you need for developing games, but regardless of the money you got, you still need talented folks and you need a way to motivate them on a project that will inevitably last longer than the 2 hours that RotK runs... which is probably the average game geeks max attention span. HA! Good Fun!

curiosity HA! Good Fun!

well, most people here either see FO or PS:T as their favorite RPG. So in some ways, you can't get around comparing the two, if only by the games they eventually release. if obsidian announces that the game they is working on is kotor2, we suspect that the favorite game of most obsidian posters will be kotor... and many of those kotor fans won't know or care 'bout bis. just a little perspective. HA! Good Fun!

when others make good points we will concede... and sammy accusing us of circular logic is kinda amusing. nevertheless, we admit that we probably won't last long on fergie's board. HA! Good Fun!

if kotor2 is the game they is working on, then they won't be publishing under the atari or ea label, will they? not see how your complaints 'bout working on kotor2 would be significantly different than if obsidian were working on some other license... 'specially with microsoft. again, is not impossible that microsoft and obsidian would team up

microsoft owns the rights to shadowrun. this is not to say that obsidian and microsoft could not work together, but... HA! Good Fun!