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Chris Avellone interview at Gamestar.ru


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http://gamestar.ru/article/1789.html

 

What do you think about MMORPG? Is Obsidian going to assimilate this experiance?

I think they're fun. That said, we won't be doing them as a studio anytime in the near future (requires too many people, and it's not one of our core competencies).

 

Can you tell how much projects are currently in development at Obsidian?

A metric crapload of pitches, 2 RPGs currently in development, and other projects at various stages at well. Can't say much about them yet, unfortunately.

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Hmh, I wonder if the XBLA is sidelined for the time being. Or if that interview was done before they got signed to do the animation project.

 

Actually, Sawyers Project is probably the youngest. They were talking about this big IP for a little longer.

 

Edit: Or I just misunderstand your post? >_<

Edited by C2B
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Hmh, I wonder if the XBLA is sidelined for the time being. Or if that interview was done before they got signed to do the animation project.

 

Actually, Sawyers Project is probably the youngest. They were talking about this big IP for a little longer.

 

Edit: Or I just misunderstand your post? >_<

 

No you didn't. I remembered the project names wrong. Sawyer's North Carolina is the newer out of the two. If those "sources/rumours" are correct.

Hate the living, love the dead.

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Did I miss something? I don't know where you guys have been taking your names from.

 

We know for sure that the animation project is named New York. New York joined after Virginia and assuming Sawyers Project was the next....

 

Well, North Carolina.

Edited by C2B
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Did I miss something? I don't know where you guys have been taking your names from.

 

We know for sure that the animation project is named New York. New York joined after Virginia and assuming Sawyers Project was the next....

 

Well, North Carolina.

 

From where? I just don't understand where this information came from.

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Did I miss something? I don't know where you guys have been taking your names from.

 

We know for sure that the animation project is named New York. New York joined after Virginia and assuming Sawyers Project was the next....

 

Well, North Carolina.

 

From where? I just don't understand where this information came from.

 

I was wrong. We don't know "for sure" (Well we know New York exists and is currently strongly beeing worked on). Its highly probable though. We heard about New York again in the Tim Cain Interview.

 

The rest is well...

 

Virginia->New York->North Carolina according to their order.

Edited by C2B
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Did I miss something? I don't know where you guys have been taking your names from.

 

We know for sure that the animation project is named New York. New York joined after Virginia and assuming Sawyers Project was the next....

 

Well, North Carolina.

 

From where? I just don't understand where this information came from.

 

It's guess work, plain and simple. Obsidian names(or at least used to) their projects by states and those states are put to order by their join date or whatever. Since we have no solid info on how long have current projects been in development or if there have been some cancelled projects in between, I think it's mostly confusing to try to pin a state name to a project.

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Did I miss something? I don't know where you guys have been taking your names from.

 

We know for sure that the animation project is named New York. New York joined after Virginia and assuming Sawyers Project was the next....

 

Well, North Carolina.

 

From where? I just don't understand where this information came from.

 

It's guess work, plain and simple. Obsidian names(or at least used to) their projects by states and those states are put to order by their join date or whatever. Since we have no solid info on how long have current projects been in development or if there have been some cancelled projects in between, I think it's mostly confusing to try to pin a state name to a project.

 

New York is in development (Tim Cain works on it). New York joined after Virginia (which we have solid info on). Considering we haven't heard about other projects except that Sawyer is Lead on a New Original IP. And the timing suggests that there weren't any cancelled projects in between for a variety of reasons.

 

It's guess work. Yes, maybe its totally wrong (New York could surprisingly turn out to be the WOT game for example). It can still be not much of a stretch depending on information available.

Edited by C2B
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We know there's a New York project in development. We don't what it is, and judging by some comments by Tim Cain, the design is still being finalized.

 

We know Josh is project director on another project.

 

We know they're working on a project for a "lead animation franchise".

 

We know, going by what Feargus says (and going by past history) that they're all going to be role-playing games.

 

That's about the extent of solid facts available, I think.

 

P.S.: Do we know if expansions/DLC receive a state name too? I'm inclined to believe at least DLC do not.

Edited by WorstUsernameEver
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We know there's a New York project in development. We don't what it is, and judging by some comments by Tim Cain, the design is still being finalized.

 

We know Josh is project director on another project.

 

We know they're working on a project for a "lead animation franchise".

 

We know, going by what Feargus says (and going by past history) that they're all going to be role-playing games.

 

That's about the extent of solid facts available, I think.

 

P.S.: Do we know if expansions/DLC receive a state name too? I'm inclined to believe at least DLC do not.

 

Yes, and from those facts I draw this conclusion. Again, we know Virginia. After Virginia, New York joined the union. That means that New York was most probable the big license talk. Which means the animation franchise. After that North Carolina joined the union. Most probable Sawyers Project. Again, not really a stretch. Of course theres other possiblities. I'm not saying its a fact I just want to explain how we arrived at this conclusion/speculation.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._...te_of_statehood

 

P.S yes. MOTB and SOZ got state names. DLC didn't.

Edited by C2B
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And the timing suggests that there weren't any cancelled projects in between for a variety of reasons.

Correct me if I'm wrong but if the 3-projects rule holds true then the last time we knew what all 3 were was before AP release.

That would mean that currently the oldest project is in production for well over a year and still has not been announced.

Seems like plenty of time for canceling a project and starting a new one.

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And the timing suggests that there weren't any cancelled projects in between for a variety of reasons.

Correct me if I'm wrong but if the 3-projects rule holds true then the last time we knew what all 3 were was before AP release.

That would mean that currently the oldest project is in production for well over a year and still has not been announced.

Seems like plenty of time for canceling a project and starting a new one.

 

That would be Virginia.

I should have written "started and cancelled" to get inbetween State Names. Also since New York is still running and that comes right after Virginia..... And till Virginia all projects are "known".

Edited by C2B
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And the timing suggests that there weren't any cancelled projects in between for a variety of reasons.

Correct me if I'm wrong but if the 3-projects rule holds true then the last time we knew what all 3 were was before AP release.

That would mean that currently the oldest project is in production for well over a year and still has not been announced.

Seems like plenty of time for canceling a project and starting a new one.

 

Or it just means that the publisher has a smarter marketing plan than Sega. There's no point in announcing projects years before the release date. Optimally you want to announce the game 6 to 12 months before the release date, to be able to maximize the amount of publicity without the fear of people "forgetting" that game is coming out.

Hate the living, love the dead.

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Or it just means that the publisher has a smarter marketing plan than Sega. There's no point in announcing projects years before the release date. Optimally you want to announce the game 6 to 12 months before the release date, to be able to maximize the amount of publicity without the fear of people "forgetting" that game is coming out.

That's possible but I still think development time unusual.

Obsidian is after all a company that made it's position on sequels reusing assets and technology.

It also seem to clash with the rumors of free2play or iphones/XBL games which should take less time to develop.

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Or it just means that the publisher has a smarter marketing plan than Sega. There's no point in announcing projects years before the release date. Optimally you want to announce the game 6 to 12 months before the release date, to be able to maximize the amount of publicity without the fear of people "forgetting" that game is coming out.

That's possible but I still think development time unusual.

Obsidian is after all a company that made it's position on sequels reusing assets and technology.

It also seem to clash with the rumors of free2play or iphones/XBL games which should take less time to develop.

 

They can't really re-use assets if they aren't working on a sequel with the same engine that the previous title was made with. I think MCA said in some interview they got games coming out of Onyx. Yes, in plural games. FNV was released about a year ago. At least some of the team went to work on the dlcs. If we presume the remaining staff went to work on New York after they were done with FNV that's about a year in development. That's if they started working on it immediately after FNV. Development time for AAA project can be anything between 18 months to 5 years. Though in Obsidian's case I would imagine 2 to 3 years is the maximum time they would get. So I wouldn't worry yet.

 

As for the XBLA game. Since it's supposedly indie, they won't announce it early on. It will be a lot closer to release date than 6 to 12 months, something like 1 to 3 months. They might even take advantage of the preview rounds for one of their other projects and show the XBLA game to the media at the same time (announce it earlier and then show it to selected media who come to see their bigger projects). Or that's at least how I would do it, with a very limited / non-existant marketing budget. And add some guerrilla marketing to that....

And who knows, how much focus they've had on the XBLA game, they might have had to shift people from it to work on the non-indie games to make deadlines.

Hate the living, love the dead.

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In our recent interview Brian Fargo said that he has some thoughts about Wasteland remake, but no one publisher interested in this game right now. Same situation with System Shock and Might and Magic, their publishing rights lay without purpose in EA and Ubisoft who don't really beliave in this games success. What do you think about it? Why the games which started the great series and make a genres not really needed today?

They usually evolve in another direction - much of what made System Shock 1 and 2 great got evolved into Bioshock, for example, and it also was a way of keeping the genre fresh.

 

Brian Fargo is actually in a pretty unique position in that he has control over a franchise that he created. With both System Shock and Might and Magic, the rights to those franchises are owned by people who weren't really involved in their creation. The people who created those games have moved on to other projects.

 

Also, there have been a few attempts to revive old franchise. King's Bounty and the Japanese developed Wizardry games are good examples. Brian Fargo would probably have a much better chance of bringing back Wasteland if he tries to make a small low budget game like Katauri/1C did with King's Bounty.

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We know there's a New York project in development. We don't what it is, and judging by some comments by Tim Cain, the design is still being finalized.

 

We know Josh is project director on another project.

 

We know they're working on a project for a "lead animation franchise".

 

We know, going by what Feargus says (and going by past history) that they're all going to be role-playing games.

 

That's about the extent of solid facts available, I think.

 

P.S.: Do we know if expansions/DLC receive a state name too? I'm inclined to believe at least DLC do not.

 

Yes, and from those facts I draw this conclusion. Again, we know Virginia. After Virginia, New York joined the union. That means that New York was most probable the big license talk. Which means the animation franchise. After that North Carolina joined the union. Most probable Sawyers Project. Again, not really a stretch. Of course theres other possiblities. I'm not saying its a fact I just want to explain how we arrived at this conclusion/speculation.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._...te_of_statehood

 

P.S yes. MOTB and SOZ got state names. DLC didn't.

 

Didn't JE Sawyer post a pic on his twitter once of a book or two with "North Carolina" on the front cover? Seemed like a cryptic way of saying what his project was.

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Didn't JE Sawyer post a pic on his twitter once of a book or two with "North Carolina" on the front cover? Seemed like a cryptic way of saying what his project was.

 

Yes, he did. You can still see them if you browse his recently sent pics.

Hate the living, love the dead.

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