New sekret project confirmed?

[Pop]

No Aliens.

 

Dun dun dunnnnnn

[Tigranes]

Aliens was never announced.

 

Dun dun dunn

[BAdler]

It would be nice, if say one of those really nice Obsidian people said something like "The Publisher for this contract starts with the letter A".

 

That could help us narrow down our speculation.

 

The letter

[rainwarrior]

It would be nice, if say one of those really nice Obsidian people said something like "The Publisher for this contract starts with the letter A".

 

That could help us narrow down our speculation.

 

The letter

[Syraxis]

A cyberpunk/sci-fi RPG is fine too.

[Pop]

To be honest I'd rather see Aliens made than anything.

 

I just want it to be interesting for its own sake, not because it's "fresh territory". If we've gotten to the point where a game is is dismissed because of superficial similarities to other games we've gotten to the point where we shouldn't really be playing games.

[ShadySands]

A cyberpunk/sci-fi RPG is fine too.

 

<fights the urge to type SHADOWRUN in big bold letters>

 

 

... dammit

[Jaesun]

A cyberpunk/sci-fi RPG is fine too.

 

<fights the urge to type SHADOWRUN in big bold letters>

 

 

... dammit

 

M$ owns the property now. And well... I don't think we will see a M$ Published game by Obsidian. But maybe someday.

 

That WOULD be awesome if it was a Shadowrun Game. <3 <3

[Syraxis]

A shadowrun (or original cyberpunk setting) freeroaming RPG, this NEEDS to get developed.

[Zoma]

As much as I hate to say this, let Bethesda be the ones making free roaming RPGs. They've already got established groundwork and framework in both talents and resources to make games like Oblivion and Fallout 3.

 

Let Obsidian do what they've always done best: Creating good games with tight narration story with a degree of freedom in C&Cs. At the most, the scope of freeroaming world similar to Fallout 1 and 2 rather than 3.

[Gorth]

Let Obsidian do what they've always done best: Creating good games with tight narration story with a degree of freedom in C&Cs. At the most, the scope of freeroaming world similar to Fallout 1 and 2 rather than 3.

 

I think part of the problem is, Bethesada is just about the only company that tries to make "crpgs" of the free roaming kind (the Gothics being the only other ones that spring to mind). One day, they are going to wear out the poor Gamebryo (sp?) engine. I would love to see other companies, Obsidian included, try their hand at such a project.

[Syraxis]

As much as I hate to say this, let Bethesda be the ones making free roaming RPGs. They've already got established groundwork and framework in both talents and resources to make games like Oblivion and Fallout 3.

 

They have over a decade of experience in sandbox games, very true, but that doesn't mean whatever fundamentals they have set in their recent games cannot be surpassed. Quite the opposite, post-morrowind Bethesda has been on a slow decline, example being how a lot of the original designers left the company due to internal politics. Presently there's really two things they're good at: marketing and world environments.

 

Their game design is incredibly weak (compare Van Buren's plot to Fallout 3's search for NPC_Liam_Neeson, purify water plot and don't get me started on Oblivion.) Q&A? I have the notion that their "bug testing" team consist of offshore outsources from a sweatshop in China. It says a lot about how much a company cares about the quality of their products when the people who pay money to support their company have to literally pay to fix their games for them.

 

They are very aware of this, hence why they want to have tight control over any piece of news regarding their games (ever notice how so little news is released up until a few months before release yet they are their own publisher that doesn't have to bow to any external companies? Not including Zenimax.) But during those few months, anything that is critical of their games is quickly dealt with. All those "review" articles that give their games 9, 10, GOTY A++? Subtract 25-30 points and that's the actual score if they were not bribed.

 

Picture Oblivion in all it's ****iness and fail for a second, now imagine it having deep quests with multiple solutions, fleshed out setting with areas and factions that actually have a backstory to them, characters that were well written and NPC's that didn't use the same four voice actors. Could Obsidian do that? If they had focus on what they wanted to accomplish in such a game, I honestly think so. The only real flaw that I see in Obsidian's products is a lack of polish, that's a lot higher than post-morrowind Bethesda.

 

One day, they are going to wear out the poor Gamebryo (sp?) engine. I would love to see other companies, Obsidian included, try their hand at such a project.

 

Gamebryo is a good, powerful engine. The problem is Bethsoft's software engineers and the fact they primarily develop on console platforms. If they developed primarily on PC then ported to consoles, the overall performance would most likely be better on all platforms. Ironic how they focus a lot on graphics yet static objects always have their shadows disabled (requiring tweaking in .ini files to enable.)

 

/rant

Edited April 11, 2009 by Syraxis

[Zoma]

The problem I think is that you'll need to have pretty good technical foundation to make such complex free roaming worlds. Stalker took a long time to be made and Gothic 3 engine was released in a pretty much FUBARed state. Fallout 3 uses the same engine as Oblivion which had foundation based on Morrowind that was made with a template based on the DOS Elderscroll games. Regardless, be it GTA IV, Oblivion/Fallout 3, Far Cry 2, Stalker and Assasin's Creed, these games comes at great expanse of pouring stupid amount of resources to ensure the game engine runs smoothly instead of focusing good writings and dialogues, which involves alot of scriptings.

 

However, that's not to say that its not possible for Obsidian to make such technical achievement. In fact if this sekret project happends to be Neverwinter Nights 3, they did mention of having a goal to make game maps to be loaded in real time and connected to each other than in modules. That will be considered as Obsidian's first attempt in recreating a semi free-roaming world. After that Obsidian could simply improve on it with future projects and engine upgrades on the existing foundation.

[crakkie]

They have over a decade of experience in sandbox games, very true, but that doesn't mean whatever fundamentals they have set in their recent games cannot be surpassed.

If you compare them to some MMOs' seamless free roaming worlds, they aren't the technological leader.

 

I would love to see another continuous, realistically proportioned world, like Arcanum, with several miles between locations and procedural (not canned) terrain between. Creating another modern, miniaturized open world puts them in a market with everyone else following this trend. Arcanum didn't do much in the way of rewarding exploration, though, as you would rarely run across anything (and be killed by bears) if you just wandered the map.

[Oblarg]

KotOR3 would be awesome, but...

 

It seems LucasArts and BioWare are intent on covering up KotOR2 as if it never happened for their generic cashcow MMO. What a pity. BioWare doesn't have any writer nearly as good as Chris Avellone.

 

Perhaps a new IP? It would be nice to see Obsidian doing more stuff with their own IP.

[mkreku]

All those "review" articles that give their games 9, 10, GOTY A++? Subtract 25-30 points and that's the actual score if they were not bribed.

Feel free to provide some sort of proof, unless you're making this **** up on the spot.

[Humodour]

One of my sources at Sega explained that the game is a crate-based FPS RPG set in a universe licensed from Valve (presumably the Half-Life universe).

 

I cannot stress enough how much of an awesome decision this is Obsidz! You guys ****ing rock.

[Syraxis]

Feel free to provide some sort of proof, unless you're making this **** up on the spot.

 

Sure thing.

 

Fallout 3 is such an engaging and fantastic experience that it's easy to overlook its few minor flaws, but they do exist and should be mentioned. With any game of this size and scope, you can likely expect a few bugs to slip through the testing process and that is the case here. I had the game crash a couple times. I, and other editors at IGN, have also experienced an annoying number of bugs on the PS3 version that have prevented the game from progressing or have broken the world. In all of these cases, reloading the game has been enough to fix the errors and nothing was frustrating or detrimental enough to give me thought of not recommending the game. However, there is one major issue with the PS3 version that can't be fixed with a reset. Every time anybody on your friends list signs on or sends you a message (or any time you receive any network notification), the game freezes and the screen blurs for a few seconds. If you have a lot of friends signing on and off all day, this will completely ruin the game. The only way to circumvent this is to either play offline or turn off notifications entirely.

 

Showstopper bugs and crashes? That's not so minor to me, but what's the review score?

 

It's a fun game but really now, does a game version riddled with game breaking bugs deserve a high score? I already explained how they blacklist fansites for posting unfavorable reviews.

Edited April 13, 2009 by Syraxis

[rainwarrior]

If they developed primarily on PC then ported to consoles, the overall performance would most likely be better on all platforms.

 

Why would you believe this?

[Slowtrain]

All those "review" articles that give their games 9, 10, GOTY A++? Subtract 25-30 points and that's the actual score if they were not bribed.

Feel free to provide some sort of proof, unless you're making this **** up on the spot.

 

 

Regardless of what can be proved or not, the ludicrous high scores that Beth's 2 most recent games have gotten are pretty absurd.

 

I do question how Oblivion especially rates so many 10s and 9+s. Its such a broken, tedious, buggy game.

 

Frankly, at this point I have had my fill of sandbox games. The onyl one to do it well recently that I have played was STALKER: SOC.

 

Far Cry 2 did it OK. In some areas at least.

 

 

Personally, I'd rather see Obsidian design games along the System SHock/Deus Ex paradigm: linear story but big non-linear levels to play about it in.

 

I'm hoping AP does this.

[Wrath of Dagon]

They're not absurd if you consider everything else that's currently available. Sure, comparing it to some perfect game from 10 years ago the scores might be too high, but comparing to the current sea of crap they're pretty reasonable. And of course there's the well know phenomenon of review score inflation. On a 5 point scale, an average game is 3, but on a 10 point scale, it's 7. Also disliking Oblivion is mostly personal preference, it's a solid 8.4 on the quality scale. Just look at the level of detail and compare it to almost any other game.

[Deadly_Nightshade]

...but comparing to the current sea of crap they're pretty reasonable.

 

But it is part of the "sea of crap."

 

 

...it's a solid 8.4 on the quality scale. Just look at the level of detail and compare it to almost any other game.

 

Lulz.

[Rostere]

Just look at the level of detail and compare it to almost any other game.

 

OK, it might be detailed, but it's still a piece of ****. Oblivion is essentially like Postal only without all the fun stuff. Ultimately, you feel there isn't really any point in anything you do. Everything from the visual style to the story to the "details" are just wonderfully bland. What's the point with detail if it doesn't add to a meaningful game experience?

[Slowtrain]

They're not absurd if you consider everything else that's currently available. Sure, comparing it to some perfect game from 10 years ago the scores might be too high, but comparing to the current sea of crap they're pretty reasonable. And of course there's the well know phenomenon of review score inflation. On a 5 point scale, an average game is 3, but on a 10 point scale, it's 7. Also disliking Oblivion is mostly personal preference, it's a solid 8.4 on the quality scale. Just look at the level of detail and compare it to almost any other game.

 

 

I'm totally aware of the "just because you don't like a game doesn't mean it's bad" thing. SOmetimes its true. But there are also times, when you don't like a game and it is in fact a bad game.

 

Francescos and OOO and the like are (were) so popular because they took a pretty broken game and made it somewhat playable.

 

Anyway, as I said, I've had enough of sandbox games for the moment and hope Obsidian does not go that route.

[Moatilliatta]

Sure thing.

 

Fallout 3 is such an engaging and fantastic experience that it's easy to overlook its few minor flaws, but they do exist and should be mentioned. With any game of this size and scope, you can likely expect a few bugs to slip through the testing process and that is the case here. I had the game crash a couple times. I, and other editors at IGN, have also experienced an annoying number of bugs on the PS3 version that have prevented the game from progressing or have broken the world. In all of these cases, reloading the game has been enough to fix the errors and nothing was frustrating or detrimental enough to give me thought of not recommending the game. However, there is one major issue with the PS3 version that can't be fixed with a reset. Every time anybody on your friends list signs on or sends you a message (or any time you receive any network notification), the game freezes and the screen blurs for a few seconds. If you have a lot of friends signing on and off all day, this will completely ruin the game. The only way to circumvent this is to either play offline or turn off notifications entirely.

 

Showstopper bugs and crashes? That's not so minor to me, but what's the review score?

 

*snipped*

 

It's a fun game but really now, does a game version riddled with game breaking bugs deserve a high score? I already explained how they blacklist fansites for posting unfavorable reviews.

I love the reading comprehension of the modern internet dude. They even recognized that scores can't tell the whole story and told you when you definately could have serious problems on the PS3.

 

Reviewers are such horrible people for enjoying their games. Reviewers should cater solely to angry irate nerds because they're such a huge and important demographic.