Obsidian podcast

[Purkake]

Hello,

 

Podcasts (pre-recorded audio/video shows) are all the rage these days. I'm sure at least some of you are listening to them. I sure am, they help make my commutes a bit more bearable. Have you (Obsidian staff) considered doing a weekly or monthly podcast about game development, games and the industry? It would be interesting to hear JE Sawyer's, Chris Avellone's and other Obsidian employees' opinion on things and it would also allow you to talk directly to your fans. Also you would get to promote Obsidian and your upcoming games, as well as, get direct feedback from listeners via this forum. A lot of other game studios, such as Insomniac and Bungie are doing it.

 

I don't want you to do it because you feel that you must, but it would be a good way to get your thought heard and to get fast and direct feedback on them. I'm sure there would be a lot of people who would be interested.

 

Just a humble suggestion

[Blank]

I like you, PrrCake. I like you.

[Purkake]

I like you, PrrCake. I like you.

 

Oookay, that's nice, I guess... Thanks

[Montgomery Markland]

It's a cool idea. I'll ask around.

[Humodour]

Doet.

[Purkake]

It's a cool idea. I'll ask around.

 

That's awesome, thanks!

[Rob McGinnis]

A few of us talked about it a while ago. The problem is our Podcast would probably be a bunch of drunken nonsense or NWN2 stuff. We can't talk about a lot of the things we are doing yet, and Seinfeld kinda cornered the market on shows about nothing.

 

If you guys have ideas for shows, let me, Matt Rorie or Monty know and we'll see what we can do... Maybe the drunken nonsense would be fun

[Starwars]

I'm all for drunken nonsense and NWN2, preferably at the same time.

 

Still, I think it could be cool to just discuss RPGs in general if you can't talk about the upcoming games yet. Discussing design decisions taken on OEIs (as well as from companies where current OEI employess might have worked) past games, and talk about what you felt was good, what you would do differently today etc. There are quite a few cool people at OEI and I bet many RPG fans would be interested in their views on things.

 

Or if a podcast doesn't work, maybe have an OEI blog or something.

[Purkake]

A few of us talked about it a while ago. The problem is our Podcast would probably be a bunch of drunken nonsense or NWN2 stuff. We can't talk about a lot of the things we are doing yet, and Seinfeld kinda cornered the market on shows about nothing.

 

If you guys have ideas for shows, let me, Matt Rorie or Monty know and we'll see what we can do... Maybe the drunken nonsense would be fun

 

I understand that you can't talk about the games you are working on at the moment. I was thinking more of a general "Obsidian" podcast where you discuss game development in today's market(consoles vs PC, hardcore vs mainstream...), how games(especially RPGs) have changed and where they will go and what you would like to see. Then you could discuss games that are out now(again RPGs get no love these days) from your unique viewpoint of having created Fallout and Planescape: Torment and so on. Also just general talk about life, the Universe and whatever else.(nothing wrong with drunken nonsense that's like half the podcasts these days). Most of the better podcasts out there are freeform, where there is a general direction, but people mostly talk about whatever they want. The podcasts where a bunch of people are locked into a room for an hour are rarely good. It is much better when the people want talk about things on their mind.

 

You could at least give it a try, if it's really bad and no one will like it then just stop, no harm done.

 

Also nothing beats the value of being able to talk to your fans directly and get direct feedback. This forum is great, but there is rarely a long dialog between the developers and fans.

 

EDIT: If you want some inspiration, listen to a few episodes of the now-dead GFW Radio, the Giant Bombcast or Idle Thumbs.

Edited January 12, 2009 by Purkake

[Matthew Rorie]

I think a company blog will be occurring before a podcast will, but it's also been something I've been thinking about for a while. From the number of "How do I get into the games industry?" questions we receive, I think a rotating podcast based on that topic alone might be interesting. But we'll see!

 

Having been on the Giant Bombcast once or twice now, and on the GameSpot podcast before that, it's definitely an interesting experience. I think that, as a developer who works through publishers, we'd have to be a lot more careful about what we say than what a press website could get away with, but still - it's been something I've had on my mind for a while.

[Pidesco]

I would love it if Obsidian started organizing round tables on game design, either in a podcast or in a blog. Like, one a month or something. I'd imagine it might even help Obsidian employees become better at their jobs.

[Tigranes]

Just podcast your tabletop D&D sessions. :D

[Rhomal]

Just to add to the above, even if it was just general game dev topics or nwn2 specific I think it would be very informative and a great communication tool. Hopefully you folks can find the time to do so!

[Llyranor]

There's already an Obsidian blog. 3 of them, even.

 

And they never get updated.

[Matthew Rorie]

There's already an Obsidian blog. 3 of them, even.

 

And they never get updated.

 

Well, we did redo the homepage with a new content management system a while back called Joomla, which makes it a lot easier to do things with periodic updates like news or a blog. Not that the forum-based blogs are bad, per se, but if we did a Joomla-based blog and made it a more prominent part of the homepage it might be a little easier for people to find it, instead of having it simply exist on the forums. Plus, you get to do cool things like add a Twitter widget, do trackbacks, maybe have a blogroll for employees, etc.

 

This is still in the planning stages and might not work out anytime soon, but we're definitely thinking of some stuff.

[Rhomal]

There's already an Obsidian blog. 3 of them, even.

 

And they never get updated.

 

Well, we did redo the homepage with a new content management system a while back called Joomla, which makes it a lot easier to do things with periodic updates like news or a blog. Not that the forum-based blogs are bad, per se, but if we did a Joomla-based blog and made it a more prominent part of the homepage it might be a little easier for people to find it, instead of having it simply exist on the forums. Plus, you get to do cool things like add a Twitter widget, do trackbacks, maybe have a blogroll for employees, etc.

 

This is still in the planning stages and might not work out anytime soon, but we're definitely thinking of some stuff.

 

You know with a powerful CMS like Joomla or DNN you could replace the entire site. As there's nothing the site does now that couldn't be emulated by either of those types of packages but with the added bonus of doing it even better or/and easier to edit. Just a thought

 

I used a CMS's for nwn2news (Xoops which was PHP/mysql based) and currently for wodonlinenews I use DotNetNuke (DNN which is .asp/mssql based) and both are quite robust, feature filled and open source.

[Montgomery Markland]

Just podcast your tabletop D&D sessions. :D

 

This would rock.

 

We should start a Planescape D&D campaign and record it.

 

For a very brief time we had two cool PnP sessions going. A D20 Modern thing with the Dark Matter setting run by Nat Chapman and a WH40K campaign using whatever the rpg thing is called for that run by J.R.

[Skunkeen]

It would be wicked to hear a Obsidian show. Based on the suggestions above. A lot of your fans sometimes want to hear more then just about NWN2.

The NWN Podcast can never get enough of having Obsidian folks as guests onto our show and still plenty more we would love to have join us. I have yet to audio chat with any of yall and would be cool to hang out over the show sometime.

[Purkake]

Just podcast your tabletop D&D sessions. :D

 

This would rock.

 

We should start a Planescape D&D campaign and record it.

 

For a very brief time we had two cool PnP sessions going. A D20 Modern thing with the Dark Matter setting run by Nat Chapman and a WH40K campaign using whatever the rpg thing is called for that run by J.R.

 

BEST. IDEA. EVER!

 

Whatever you will end up doing it about, I will listen.

[Rhomal]

BEST. IDEA. EVER!

 

Whatever you will end up doing it about, I will listen.

 

QFT and ditto!

[Pop]

Official Obsidz Twitter is up.

[Matthew Rorie]

Official Obsidz Twitter is up.

 

Indeed. I meant to make a post about it - I might as well just make it a full post. Assuming funcroc doesn't beat me to it.

[Humodour]

I would very much like to hear drunk Obsidian PnP podcasts.

[Rostere]

I would very much like to hear drunk Obsidian PnP podcasts.

 

I don't know if we'll ever see that , but we could always do drunk Obsidian fan podcasts (lol?) in the meantime. Or drunk Obsidian forum posting. Or just be drunk.

[Solo]

On the idea of podcasting here. Would people from other countries be allowed to converse on the show? Like ask a question or would we submit them in before hand?

 

I'm in Japan and the time difference is really hard depending on what time a live cast could be done to be actually able to communicate live.