What are you playing now?

[Raithe]

Theres something Im curious about in SWTOR. I was watching a recent 10 minute demo of a level 50 raid and at the beginning it showed the characters being briefed on the misssion and having the ability to reply to the NPC. In a raid, who controls the reply? It cant possibly be 10/25 individuals each answering so is it the raid leader that makes all responses?

 

Ah there is actually some semi-random system. Everyone chooses their reply, but the dialog system will pick one of them as the "legit" rersponse and play that cutscene with that persons response. And it does that for every dialog choice. So just because someone "won" the first response, doesn't mean they'll be controlling every response in the sequence.

If I remember correctly, there will be something that "weights" the results or scores the random number generator or whatever it is depending on how many in a group go for a specific type of resonse (ie, if more people choose a dark side response, it's more likely to select one of them rather then the minority choices). But I'm fuzzy on exactly what it is. Also I have a fuzzy memory that it had somethign that for each time you "win" a dialog roll you get some kind of social credit.

 

Dang it. now my memory is totally futzing on exactly what they said so I might have totally ballsed up that answer. But it's in that vague area.

Edited September 1, 2011 by Raithe

[Hurlshort]

AP still trumps DX with the dialogue, and I'm pretty sure the reactive storyline in AP is superior as well. Not that I'm knocking DX:HR, it's fantastic. I wish AP looked and played like DX. But they are both fantastic games for different reasons.

[Nepenthe]

Pretty unfair comparison to AP since Square Enix spend a million jillion dollars making HR, while Sega could obviously only afford a shoe string budget. Plus Obsidian had no prior experience making action/stealth games.

Also unfair in that Obsidian had multiple shipped projects, while this was Eidos Montr

[Wrath of Dagon]

Pretty unfair comparison to AP since Square Enix spend a million jillion dollars making HR, while Sega could obviously only afford a shoe string budget. Plus Obsidian had no prior experience making action/stealth games.

Also unfair in that Obsidian had multiple shipped projects, while this was Eidos Montr

Edited September 1, 2011 by Wrath of Dagon

[HoonDing]

Finished Prince of Persia, though in reality it should've been called Fable 3: Oriental Edition. Pretty bad game overall and definitely worst PoP game of all time.

[Nepenthe]

Pretty unfair comparison to AP since Square Enix spend a million jillion dollars making HR, while Sega could obviously only afford a shoe string budget. Plus Obsidian had no prior experience making action/stealth games.

Also unfair in that Obsidian had multiple shipped projects, while this was Eidos Montr

Edited September 1, 2011 by Nepenthe

[Morgoth]

Once I find some "calmer days" I'm gonna finally dig into DX:HR.

 

After that, who knows. Not that I'm in a hurry now.

[Malcador]

The people were pretty experienced though, so the age of the studio isn't exactly a huge factor in the silly comparison between the two, heh. Hope EM does well though with the new DX series, except for Dugas though.

[entrerix]

im very eager to see more from the deus ex studio. they did a great job with that game.

 

im currently replaying it, and thinking about replaying persona 2 afterwards. its been a while, and i've never actually finished the game... its soooooo long and grindy

[Wombat]

I don't know if it's just you, but I don't have a problem with their design philosophy, AP wasn't meant to be Deus Ex.

Your comment reminds me of what some designers told at that time. And just for sure, I don't mean that everything in AP should be like DXHR (as I had already written in this thread). If you read the article I linked, you might see my reasoning.

[C2B]

Pretty unfair comparison to AP since Square Enix spend a million jillion dollars making HR, while Sega could obviously only afford a shoe string budget. Plus Obsidian had no prior experience making action/stealth games.

That's that but is that really only me who sees problems even in design philosophy? Also, if no Obsidian designers had seen any problem, why did Sawyer need to give a presentation like this even less than a month ago? I understand the psychology to blame publishers but Occam's razor tells me it's not the only reason. I'm not blaming anyone here. Simply put, it would be better for both designers and us if we are able to continue playing their games.

 

No its not the only reason.

 

Yes, in that case it was the reason

 

It was stated that these mechanics were mandated by the publisher. Something that wasn't well received by the team.

[GhostofAnakin]

Deus Ex, baby!

[Wombat]

It was stated that these mechanics were mandated by the publisher. Something that wasn't well received by the team.

Really hard to believe, since it definitely makes me think such a publisher would be a sheer idiot. In any case, I wonder if I could reach the source now but I read some comments of Obsidian designers who don't see any problem with the core mechanics since it is designed as an RPG (What did Sawyer tell about this way of thinking in the presentation?).

[C2B]

Really hard to believe, since it definitely makes me think such a publisher would be a sheer idiot. In any case, I wonder if I could reach the source now but I read some comments of Obsidian designers who don't see any problem with the core mechanics since it is designed as an RPG (What did Sawyer tell about this way of thinking in the presentation?).

 

Yes, I would like to see them too. Never saw those.

 

And this was stated by Chris Avellone and confirmed by other people including Ex-Obsidian designer Patrick K Mills on SA.

 

And no its not "that" stupid at all from SEGAs point of view. EVERY RPG/Shooter hybrid, be it Mass Effect 1, Deus Ex, Vampire: Bloodlines, SS (somewhat) did the EXACT same thing. There was no Hybrid before ME2 (Or HR depending on where you set an hybrid) that DIDN'T do this. They wanted to play it safe.

 

Its nice to say all that stuff NOW with HR and ME2 as examples. Yet they didn't exist back then and were an uncharted territory.

Edited September 2, 2011 by C2B

[Wombat]

Yes, I would like to see them too. Never saw those.

Really? Maybe, google may nail them.

 

And this was stated by Chris Avellone and confirmed by other people including Ex-Obsidian designer Patrick K Mills on SA.

Haven't seen these. [Edit]Thinking of that, we may read them differently. When I read about Sega's involvement, I thought (and still think) Sega wanted more action/shooter factors, which is more reasonable reaction as the publisher to my eyes, especially considering the tendency of the market. However, I think it was tough to make AP more-shooter-ish at that stage considering the original scope and the available (human) resources, which is more likely scenario to me.[Edit]

 

And no its not "that" stupid at all from SEGAs point of view. EVERY RPG/Shooter hybrid, be it Mass Effect 1, Deus Ex, Vampire: Bloodlines, SS (somewhat) did the EXACT same thing. There was no Hybrid before ME2 (Or HR depending on where you set an hybrid) that DIDN'T do this. They wanted to play it safe.

I've gotten an impression that some of the designers who are keen to modern games seem to foresee, judging from how they reacted to my comments and their own writings.

 

How about Oblivion? There are some dumb design decisions but the stealth was quite nice. Bioshock?

 

Also, why didn't they try to learn from some main-stream games? In fact, some shooters began to adopt some RPG mechanics and they seem to have learnt quicker than RPG designers did. They are their new competitors.

Edited September 2, 2011 by Wombat

[Gorth]

Also, why didn't they try to learn from some main-stream games? In fact, some shooters began to adopt some RPG mechanics and they seem to have learnt quicker than RPG designers did. They are their new competitors.

Isn't that based on the assumption that you want the entire market (and barely ever succeeding) rather than dominating a market segment?

[Wombat]

Also, why didn't they try to learn from some main-stream games? In fact, some shooters began to adopt some RPG mechanics and they seem to have learnt quicker than RPG designers did. They are their new competitors.

Isn't that based on the assumption that you want the entire market (and barely ever succeeding) rather than dominating a market segment?

The entire market? We may have issues even at the level of common sense. Was the fans of Alpha Protocol enough to keep the expected market segment for the investment from the publisher? Would it have helped Obsidian if we had bought a couple of copies? Even for smaller market segment, they seem to have problems with finding a publisher and "hardcore RPG fans" have to turn to indie developers.

[Gorth]

Also, why didn't they try to learn from some main-stream games? In fact, some shooters began to adopt some RPG mechanics and they seem to have learnt quicker than RPG designers did. They are their new competitors.

Isn't that based on the assumption that you want the entire market (and barely ever succeeding) rather than dominating a market segment?

The entire market?

Hyperbole on my part. The fabled 7 cities of gold for publishers, looking for the most ROI they can get for the expeditions they finance. It's mythical and undefinable, yet they seem to believe it exists and so try to cover all bases. Thats what their market analysis and sales projections are for and why games seems to converge towards some kind of formless protoplasma

 

You can pretty much write a list of what has to be in a game if you want to find X amount of dollars in investment. The difference seems to be in the ability to mix and match the items on the list, but it gets harder and harder to distinguish games from each other.

[Wombat]

You can pretty much write a list of what has to be in a game if you want to find X amount of dollars in investment. The difference seems to be in the ability to mix and match the items on the list, but it gets harder and harder to distinguish games from each other.

Yea, I see it very difficult to distinguishing the Witcher 2 from Deus Ex: Human Revolution than Baldur's Gate from Icewind Dale. But enough of rhetoric. I guess I had spent too much on the game and browsing.

[mr insomniac]

Is anyone playing Achron yet? Someone mentioned it somewhere here not too long ago, and it looked interesting enough to bookmark the site. I see it's available on steam now and was hoping for some Obsidianite feedback.

[Wrath of Dagon]

Pretty unfair comparison to AP since Square Enix spend a million jillion dollars making HR, while Sega could obviously only afford a shoe string budget. Plus Obsidian had no prior experience making action/stealth games.

Also unfair in that Obsidian had multiple shipped projects, while this was Eidos Montr

Edited September 2, 2011 by Wrath of Dagon

[Tale]

Is anyone playing Achron yet? Someone mentioned it somewhere here not too long ago, and it looked interesting enough to bookmark the site. I see it's available on steam now and was hoping for some Obsidianite feedback.

Dang. I need to try that out, but can't make time for it.

 

Pun not intended.

[Purkake]

Is anyone playing Achron yet? Someone mentioned it somewhere here not too long ago, and it looked interesting enough to bookmark the site. I see it's available on steam now and was hoping for some Obsidianite feedback.

I've been mentioning it on and off in the various indie threads. Haven't played it though.

 

Such as the one over here.

Edited September 2, 2011 by Purkake

[MechanicalLemon]

I'm still working on Deus Ex. Really good game. Decided to ditch pistols and instead went with rifles. Sniping with my modded sawed-off shotgun and sneaking on enemies with my Dragon Tooth sword is way too much fun.

 

I just killed Gunther (kinda felt bad for him) and saw the infamous "A BOMB!" scene. I'm at Vandenberg. How much more do I have left?

[Nepenthe]

I'm still working on Deus Ex. Really good game. Decided to ditch pistols and instead went with rifles. Sniping with my modded sawed-off shotgun and sneaking on enemies with my Dragon Tooth sword is way too much fun.

 

I just killed Gunther (kinda felt bad for him) and saw the infamous "A BOMB!" scene. I'm at Vandenberg. How much more do I have left?

Nearing the end.