I believe Obsidian's greatest creations were Pillars of Eternity 1 and Tyranny

[Truen]

Obsidian, you guys do great work. The world building in Pillars of Eternity is nothing short of phenomenal. And, the choices presented to me in my Tyranny playthrough left me wringing my hands in agony about how I wanted to proceed in more than 1 playthrough.

Games like these aren't just flippant 'titles,' but instead are masterpieces I'll always return to--they are cherished trophies in my video game collection. Which is why I decided to make an account and write to you today.

I've felt a bit alienated with some of your more recent projects and long for a return to high fantasy in a detailed isometric format. Remember how many of us donated to crowd fund the first creation of Pillars 1? We are your base and your biggest fans. Please remember us when making goals for projects in the future. What I loved the most about both PoE 1 and Tyranny is that they were games for everyone.

Conservatives, liberals--real life identity conflicts, or lack there of, didn't matter at all. It was about the world and its lore and problems. They were glorious.

Please consider expanding upon the worlds you handcrafted in those two titles.

Thanks for reading; have a Merry Christmas and a safe, healthy New Year.

[Hurlshort]

Yo, imma let you finish, but Alpha Protocol is Obsidian's greatest creation of all time!

[kirottu]

2 hours ago, Hurlshot said:

Yo, imma let you finish, but Alpha Protocol is Obsidian's greatest creation of all time!

 

[ComradeYellow]

I'm one of the rare few who actually enjoyed AP and DS3!

Screw consensuses, avg. opinions suck, especially in the gaming community.

[Boeroer]

On 12/19/2020 at 6:45 AM, Truen said:

Conservatives, liberals--real life identity conflicts, or lack there of, didn't matter at all.

How to screw up an otherwise decent post.

No wait... Tyranny?

[Truen]

9 hours ago, Boeroer said:

"How to screw up an otherwise decent post."

Sorry you disapproved, but I stand by my opinion that nothing diminishes a good game more than the insertion of 21st century identity politics and the issues they represent.

I truly hope the Pillars franchise will be revisited with another title, and yes--I loved Tyranny. I have a lot of fun playing it.

 

Edited December 20, 2020 by Truen

[Gromnir]

10 hours ago, Truen said:

post

am not gonna speak for @Boeroer, but one cannot help but recognize how you are indulging in arguable the same sin against which you rail. 

also, while am not agreeing with you regarding obsidian's best titles, am thinking such a recognition is hardly significant. am convinced fact we both approve o' obsidian, in spite o' fact we disagree 'bout their best works, is a positive sign. all too often, "niche" is an excuse for why a game sold poorly. fact that nobody thus far has identified the two titles we would identify as our obsidian favorites (not necessarily their best works) is potential a positive as such suggests the appeal o' obsidian games is not limited to an insular and discreet hardcore fanbase so utter homogenized they is incapable o' embracing a game which could have broader appeal. 

gonna go out on a limb and predict microsoft wants broader appeal than the bulk o' previous obsidian titles.

in another bit o' irony different from your lack o' self awareness regarding boeroer's criticism is fact we disagree with you which has us optimistic 'bout future obsidian games. whatever is the essential appeal o' obsidian, it clear transcends individual titles. notoriously finicky hardcore fans may be able to continue to enjoy whatever is the new brand o' obsidian titles.

...

what the heck. am gonna admit that while the game were woeful undercooked and ended worse than even other obsidian titles which tends to end less well than started, kotor 2 were our favorite game from obsidian. sure, near everything after the big confrontation with the assembled masters on dantooine is a torturous slog, but the first 2/3 o' kotor 2 is fantastic. big name title with a publisher as much adversary as enabler and we still ended up with a few o' obsidian's best written characters. obsidian even managed to work with an established ip not their own and do something unique with it. 

kotor 2 were, even at its best, a hot mess. we liked kotor 2. is aspects o' kotor we liked better than any other obsidian game. manage kotor 2 while working with/for lucas has us far more optimistic 'bout the future working with/for microsoft than is many o' our fellow boardies.

and am recognizing kotor2 and lucas ain't same as microsoft situation. just sayin'.

btw, am not much o' a star wars fan, so the kotor2 approval for us is all the more curious.

HA! Good Fun!

[Boeroer]

What @Gromnir said.

The rather naive (and some would say potentially dishonest*) point of "no politics in games please" aside - it seems you are mixing up personal preference with objective quality (which is difficult to measure with art or entertainment stuff like games in the first place).

What you are feeling is that those two games are the ones that you enjoyed most. But you are expressing that they are the greatest games Obsidian ever made (or at least I get that impression when reading your title and post). It's very hard to argue with the first statement while the second will be challenged by a lot of people. 

Tyranny wasn't bad, it has some really nice ideas - but it also has some serious flaws which prevents it from being one of the games I cherish.   

 

 

*) because you most likely wouldn't complain about that if those games touched your political views and embraced your worldview.

 

[Helz]

Alpha Protocol was criminally underrated. Critics all played stealthy pistol builds and complained it was broken and boring. I played Shotgun Action Hero and it was so much fun.

My favorite Obsidian game is Fallout:NV...the best Fallout since FO2.

The PoE games are modern classics. They'll probably become my favorites over time.

[rjshae]

For what it's worth, here are the Metacritic scores:

* Pillars of Eternity -- 89

* Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire -- 88

* Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords -- 85

* South Park: The Stick of Truth -- 85

* Fallout: New Vegas -- 84

* Neverwinter Nights 2 -- 82

* The Outer Worlds -- 82

* Tyranny -- 80

* Dungeon Siege III -- 72

* Alpha Protocol -- 72

[Theonlygarby]

Basic bitch time for me.  But new Vegas is the best

[Hurlshort]

On 12/21/2020 at 8:50 AM, rjshae said:

For what it's worth, here are the Metacritic scores:

* Pillars of Eternity -- 89

* Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire -- 88

* Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords -- 85

* South Park: The Stick of Truth -- 85

* Fallout: New Vegas -- 84

* Neverwinter Nights 2 -- 82

* The Outer Worlds -- 82

* Tyranny -- 80

* Dungeon Siege III -- 72

* Alpha Protocol -- 72

The crazy thing about that list is how the sales numbers are probably nowhere near in sync with it. PoE 1 and 2 definitepy didnt sell anything like The Outer Worlds or F:NV.

I'm surprised how low Outer Worlds is, actually. It had a low price point, was fairly stable, and seemed to be popular.

[Hurlshort]

Ah, I figured it out. Metacritic is garbage.

[Boeroer]

Deadfire didn't sell well. PoE did. Besides that: it's difficult to judge games' quality (or if it was liked by the buyers or not) by comparing sales numbers - especially if said games are from different genres or have little overlap in target audience.
Even in the seemingly same genre there sometimes isn't much overlap. Compare D:OS and PoE: only 40% overlap of players - although most would say it's the same game genre (CPRG). 
Then you have to take into account if there were console releases right off the shelf - and if the game works well on consoles to begin with. 

Sales numbers, contemporary critics and even user reviews are bit unreliable tools to determine whether a game is objectively "good" (if that's even a thing) or even if you (personally) will like it. Often it helps, sometimes it's misleading. Popular example from the world of movies: Citizen Kane.

But anyway: maybe it helps to not only display the meta score but also the user score to see if a game was not only received well by critis but also by the audience (regardless of sales numbers) - i find the results quite interesting:

• Pillars of Eternity: 89/8.3
• Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire: 88/7.8
• Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords: 85/8.5
• South Park: The Stick of Truth: 85/8.6
• Fallout: New Vegas: 84/8.8
• Neverwinter Nights 2: 82/6.6
• The Outer Worlds: 82/7.3
• Tyranny: 80/7.8
• Dungeon Siege III: 72/4.7
• Alpha Protocol: 72/7.5

It seems like Hurlshot's assessment of Outer World's popularity is not entirely correct. It wasn't rated extremely well (although 82 is still good) but also doesn't seem to be liked that much by its players - less than for exampe players liked Deafire. Although def. more people bought Outer Worlds than they bought Deadfire. 

[Hurlshort]

1 hour ago, Boeroer said:

 

It seems like Hurlshot's assessment of Outer World's popularity is not entirely correct. It wasn't rated extremely well (although 82 is still good) but also doesn't seem to be liked that much by its players - less than for exampe players liked Deafire. Although def. more people bought Outer Worlds than they bought Deadfire. 

As I said, Metacritic is flawed. In terms of user ratings, they are a mess. More popular, higher selling games, are typically going to have a bunch of garbage reviews because people are weird about hating stuff. PoE II just doesn't get that sort of attention, negative or positive. 

PoE II had 633 user ratings, Outer Worlds had 1,970. 

Steam actually has 7,117 reviews for Outer Worlds and it is listed as Very Positive. I consider that a better source, since it shows hours played. It still is going to be flawed. You will get the weirdos that put 1,000 hours in and then slam it. But Metacritic doesn't even really have a way to know if the person bought it. Considering it launched on Steam a year late, that also seems like a good sign.

Pillars II is also Very Positive on Steam with 7,741 reviews. 

edit: Also a bit weird, PoE II had 71 critical reviews, while Outer Worlds had 30. What happened there?

Edited December 23, 2020 by Hurlshot

[Boeroer]

I have no idea.

One reason why Outer Worlds might have a lower user score could be the Epic exclusive deal thing. Lots of (potential) players were quite pissed by this and I guess some might have given bad reviews just because of that (regardless what they actually think about the game itself). 

 

[Tencatta]

On 12/21/2020 at 10:50 AM, rjshae said:

For what it's worth, here are the Metacritic scores:

* Pillars of Eternity -- 89

* Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire -- 88

* Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords -- 85

* South Park: The Stick of Truth -- 85

* Fallout: New Vegas -- 84

* Neverwinter Nights 2 -- 82

* The Outer Worlds -- 82

* Tyranny -- 80

* Dungeon Siege III -- 72

* Alpha Protocol -- 72

Metacritic reviews shouldn't be used as a basis - no sane person would give Knights 2 anything above a 7 (technical issues, bad/unfinished ending).

Sales shouldn't be used as a basis, either.

New Vegas is the best game Obsidian made, even as buggy as it was.

[rjshae]

User ratings:

Quote

 

* Fallout: New Vegas -- 8.8

* South Park: The Stick of Truth -- 8.6

* Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords -- 8.5

* Pillars of Eternity -- 8.3

* Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire -- 7.80

* Tyranny -- 7.8

* Alpha Protocol -- 7.5

* The Outer Worlds -- 7.3

* Neverwinter Nights 2 -- 6.6

* Dungeon Siege III -- 4.7

 

They would be smart to use a robust measure to compute the score, rather than a simple average. That would eliminate a lot of outlier votes.

[Ace of Spades]

I truly believe their best creation was tyranny. That game allows me to live my evil fantasies without feeling guilty

[Theonlygarby]

On 12/22/2020 at 1:22 PM, Hurlshot said:

Ah, I figured it out. Metacritic is garbage.

Good game 0/10... love the internet 

[bringingyouthefuture]

I think all user reviews at this point are garbage, especially on Steam and metacritic, I actually appreciate the critic reviews at this point.  User people reviews fall into 4 categories in my opinion:

1) the game sucks because it has bugs

2) the game sucks because it isn't like my favorite game of all time

3) the game won't get a good review from me because I like to write long reaching reviews just to read my long review that do little but re-affrim my belief that my words matter

4) the game is good

I find critic review much more spot on these days if taken as an aggregate.

Edit side-note:

I found it interesting that people on this forum generally approved of CyberPunk 2077 for the PC, much the same way as the first reviews for the PC version were pretty positive, not that this proves my point it just is a good example of reviews being diverse for a lot of different reasons, but in general I fell professional critic reviews still give a better picture of the game.

Edited January 19, 2021 by bringingyouthefuture

[Theonlygarby]

Was dead fire steeped in identity politics?  I mean everyone was bisexual which I find annoying personally (not for political reasons I just think you being everyones type was a little lame)

 

Outerworlds had a lesbian character who was not interested in a sexual relationship.  There was also a gay guy that loved Hawthorne... I think. 

 

If that's enough to make you dislike a game... That might be your issue and not the worlds

[Boeroer]

I think that was just done to give players as many romance options as possible with the companions they had.

[Theonlygarby]

1 hour ago, Boeroer said:

I think that was just done to give players as many romance options as possible with the companions they had.

Yeah I get why they did it.  Just is immersion breaking when everyone likes me.

[Boeroer]

Totally immersive 'cause it's like in real life.