What are you playing now?

[C2B]

DSIII, while technically competent and very polished, feels lacklustre and very limited in scope. It's like they had either a too small team or not enough time to develop, or both.

It's just not a very ambitious game.

 

For a hack n' slash it certainly is ambitious (and controversial). Also again I hate to bring this up again but in which way is Alpha Protocol better? If you take the C&C away its even less ambitious than DSIII.

 

I mean I love Alpha Protocol. Its my favourite Obsidian Game actually. And I defend it like hell at any oppurtiunity. But there seems to be a hell of a lot bias going on here.

Edited July 4, 2011 by C2B

[Morgoth]

If Obsidian wants to land a smash hit, they better double their staff and take at least 3 years dev time like Bethesda does to accomplish an ambitious and outstanding product.

Is it just me or does this statement display a total lack of understanding of how (game) business functions?

GTA 4 required 700 people and a $100 million budget, that'S what I call ambitious. It also sold like 20 million units.

 

What exactly is it you don't understand?

[Labadal]

Trying to decide a build for Star Wars: KOTOR. Can't decide on anything. I do inted to do an evil playthrough this time.

I always enjoyed the caster. That spell that steals health from everyone around is enough to beat the game with.

 

Same here, playing as a caster is great, but I decided to do play a blaster wielding ***hole. I have never played a blaster build because I like lightsabers and not usually a fan of long range weapons in KOTOR1&2.

[Mamoulian War]

About Alpha Protocol. Did Sega patched the online activation out already or not? They promised, that they will do it at one time in the future, and I am still waiting for this to finally purchase the game.

[Morgoth]

DSIII, while technically competent and very polished, feels lacklustre and very limited in scope. It's like they had either a too small team or not enough time to develop, or both.

It's just not a very ambitious game.

 

For a hack n' slash it certainly is ambitious (and controversial). Also again I hate to bring this up again but in which way is Alpha Protocol better? If you take the C&C away its even less ambitious than DSIII.

 

I mean I love Alpha Protocol. Its my favourite Obsidian Game actually. And I defend it like hell at any oppurtiunity. But there seems to be a hell of a lot bias going on here.

I played till the point where I had to kill Rajana (?). And I think as a whole I only met like 5 NPCs I could talk to, which all were shallowly written. Sorry. Obsidian has to do better next time.

[kirottu]

About Alpha Protocol. Did Sega patched the online activation out already or not? They promised, that they will do it at one time in the future, and I am still waiting for this to finally purchase the game.

 

If by "patched" you mean removed then yes.

 

If I remember correctly.

[Morgoth]

About Alpha Protocol. Did Sega patched the online activation out already or not? They promised, that they will do it at one time in the future, and I am still waiting for this to finally purchase the game.

Yes, there is a patch that removes DRM. Just be careful do download the right one (US vs. EU).

[Mamoulian War]

About Alpha Protocol. Did Sega patched the online activation out already or not? They promised, that they will do it at one time in the future, and I am still waiting for this to finally purchase the game.

Yes, there is a patch that removes DRM. Just be careful do download the right one (US vs. EU).

 

YAY... Omw to my closest shop

 

Thanks for the info!

[Morgoth]

About Alpha Protocol. Did Sega patched the online activation out already or not? They promised, that they will do it at one time in the future, and I am still waiting for this to finally purchase the game.

Yes, there is a patch that removes DRM. Just be careful do download the right one (US vs. EU).

 

YAY... Omw to my closest shop

 

Thanks for the info!

You can get it for 13€ currently on Steam.

Edited July 4, 2011 by Morgoth

[WorstUsernameEver]

If Obsidian wants to land a smash hit, they better double their staff and take at least 3 years dev time like Bethesda does to accomplish an ambitious and outstanding product.

Is it just me or does this statement display a total lack of understanding of how (game) business functions?

GTA 4 required 700 people and a $100 million budget, that'S what I call ambitious. It also sold like 20 million units.

 

What exactly is it you don't understand?

 

What you're arguing is that Obsidian can magically find a publisher willing to give them the budget to double their workforce to, presumably, tackle a more ambitious project. That's just nuts.

[Morgoth]

If Obsidian wants to land a smash hit, they better double their staff and take at least 3 years dev time like Bethesda does to accomplish an ambitious and outstanding product.

Is it just me or does this statement display a total lack of understanding of how (game) business functions?

GTA 4 required 700 people and a $100 million budget, that'S what I call ambitious. It also sold like 20 million units.

 

What exactly is it you don't understand?

 

What you're arguing is that Obsidian can magically find a publisher willing to give them the budget to double their workforce to, presumably, tackle a more ambitious project. That's just nuts.

I thought when Obsidian released F:NV, they finally got out of "the hole", but then came Dungeon Siege 3. Nice game, but not very interesting or ambitious. Problem with Obsidian is they're very inconsistence, that doesn't exactly create trust in the customer.

[ShadowScythe]

FNV was the sequel to a game that was already very critically (mainstream at least) and commercially successful and it was based on an engine that had all the resources and tools set up for them. No need to develop an engine from scratch. That's not really a risky project compared to Alpha Protocol (a new IP) or Dungeon Siege 3 (based on an IP from a while back which a mainstream console audience would've forgotten/not even known about- also built on a custom engine with the aim to be bug free and have minimal loading)

Edited July 4, 2011 by ShadowScythe

[Nepenthe]

If Obsidian wants to land a smash hit, they better double their staff and take at least 3 years dev time like Bethesda does to accomplish an ambitious and outstanding product.

Is it just me or does this statement display a total lack of understanding of how (game) business functions?

GTA 4 required 700 people and a $100 million budget, that'S what I call ambitious. It also sold like 20 million units.

 

What exactly is it you don't understand?

 

What you're arguing is that Obsidian can magically find a publisher willing to give them the budget to double their workforce to, presumably, tackle a more ambitious project. That's just nuts.

What he said. You don't seem to grasp the difference between developer and publisher.

[Morgoth]

I don't know, many other companies are independent yet grow and land smash hits. Bioware got pretty big and successful before they were bought, also Crytek has like 500 employees and are still independent.

 

What are you trying to tell me? That Obsidian is a "victim" at the hand of evil publishers that are at fault that Obsidian can't make smash hits?

[C2B]

I played till the point where I had to kill Rajana (?). And I think as a whole I only met like 5 NPCs I could talk to, which all were shallowly written. Sorry. Obsidian has to do better next time.

 

Fixed. Wow, I also could say I played till the end of Saudia Arabia and meet only NPCs that were "shallow" written. Sorry Obsidian, next time.

 

In fact I remember to have defended Alpha Protocol last year about that when it was the big Obsidian "sellout".

 

 

It's fine if you don't like the game. But that does in NO WAY mean that Dungeon Siege III is somehow a "safe, unambitious" game. All the complaints from ARPG/Hack n' Slash Fans for not following gerne conventions but instead focusing on other things are proof enough.

Edited July 4, 2011 by C2B

[Morgoth]

But that does in NO WAY mean that Dungeon Siege III is somehow a "safe, unambitious" game.

But it is.

 

I hope this doesn't become norm.

[Nepenthe]

I don't know, many other companies are independent yet grow and land smash hits. Bioware got pretty big and successful before they were bought, also Crytek has like 500 employees and are still independent.

 

What are you trying to tell me? That Obsidian is a "victim" at the hand of evil publishers that are at fault that Obsidian can't make smash hits?

I don't know about Crytek, but Bioware certainly started small and was eventually given bigger and bigger budgets by the publishers, when the publishers felt that they could get a reasonable ROI. Looks like publishers haven't felt that way about Obsidian. Certainly it isn't up to Obsidian to one day hire ~400 people and pray somebody shows up, willing to foot the bill.

 

Not sure what is so hard to understand about this, it's business 101. Certainly nothing to do with how "evil" or "nice" publishers are, or similar juvenile concepts.*

 

*Though I do think that Activision is pretty "evil", at least I acknowledge that it's a flight of juvenile fancy.

Edited July 4, 2011 by Nepenthe

[C2B]

But that does in NO WAY mean that Dungeon Siege III is somehow a "safe, unambitious" game.

But it is.

No its not. Whatever you may think.

All the complaints from ARPG/Hack n' Slash Fans for not following gerne conventions but instead focusing on other things are proof enough.

 

At least not "safe".

[Morgoth]

*Though I do think that Activision is pretty "evil", at least I acknowledge that it's a flight of juvenile fancy.

If Activision was "evil", Blizzard wouldn't be around in that form today anymore. Yet, they still operate independently.

 

Either way, I think Feargus likes to have a smaller teams, everything dandy and candy and family like. That's understandable and okay, just don't expect to get treated better by publishers (more money, more time) while the competition strides ahead of you.

 

I wonder when the next-gen of consoles hits the shelves, how big are teams then gonna be?

[Lexx]

Half the size, because they are too expensive. :>

[Morgoth]

But that does in NO WAY mean that Dungeon Siege III is somehow a "safe, unambitious" game.

But it is.

No its not. Whatever you may think.

All the complaints from ARPG/Hack n' Slash Fans for not following gerne conventions but instead focusing on other things are proof enough.

 

At least not "safe".

It's not a very interesting RPG. It's the first time in any Obsidian game where I just skipped dialogs completely, because there was nothing witty or memorable about it. Quite disappointing, coming from the same guy (George Ziets) who wrote the excellent MotB.

 

Well?

Edited July 4, 2011 by Morgoth

[Flouride]

Morgoth you didn't even make it out of Act 1 / Prologue and yet you are claiming how it's a shallow game? Did Volourn hack your account since this reminds me soo much of Volourn and AP. The story doesn't really get going until after the Rajani fight, but yeah whatever...

 

Crytek makes shooters, gorgeous looking shooters. There's a way bigger market for those than there are for story based roleplaying games. BioWare started small, sure. Then they "got lucky" and got to use Interplay's licence for AD&D and with Black Isle pretty much resurrected crpgs. Without Interplay and their licence, who knows what BioWare would be today.

[Morgoth]

Morgoth you didn't even make it out of Act 1 / Prologue and yet you are claiming how it's a shallow game? Did Volourn hack your account since this reminds me soo much of Volourn and AP. The story doesn't really get going until after the Rajani fight, but yeah whatever...

 

Crytek makes shooters, gorgeous looking shooters. There's a way bigger market for those than there are for story based roleplaying games. BioWare started small, sure. Then they "got lucky" and got to use Interplay's licence for AD&D and with Black Isle pretty much resurrected crpgs. Without Interplay and their licence, who knows what BioWare would be today.

Nobody gets "lucky" in such a harsh business. Bioware got so successful and respected because they earned it.

 

Crytek just doesn't make gorgeous looking shooters, they make, since Crysis 2, also well designed shooters.

 

As for DSIII, sorry, if your game doesn't become more interesting withing a few hours, chances are the designers did something wrong.

[Malcador]

How many shooters have they made after Crysis 2 ? Decided to finally play the SP of OA, still in the middle of the airport fight though. Editor is pretty powerful, although I've made some really screwed up insertions if you give a Full speed waypoint after the Unload, chopper tilts fully, noses into the ground and explodes. The explosion seems a bit off though

Edited July 4, 2011 by Malcador

[Flouride]

Nobody gets "lucky" in such a harsh business. Bioware got so successful and respected because they earned it.

 

Like with everything in life, there sure was luck involved. The timing etc. were in their favour. It would have been a completely different story for BioWare without Interplay and the D&D licence. Not saying it was the only thing that made BioWare succesfull, but it did play out a role in it. Talented people would have made it anyways, but the BioWare we know today could be making RTS games instead of rpgs and might not be as succesfull as they are.

 

Maybe designers did something wrong or maybe they didn't, in either case it's pretty stupid to claim the story and characters are shallow if your opinion is based on 5-10% of the game.