Obsidian's Secret Project

[Flouride]

I predict that some people will be disappointed by the announcements, Gromnir will chime in and then disappear, some people will defend it, other will be wait and see, and when the game gets released it will have its fair share of stalwart defenders.

 

 

You forgot to mention the people who ragequit the forums due to AP/FNV/DS3/SP will come back and ragequit again.

[Oner]

I predict that some people will be disappointed by the announcements, Gromnir will chime in and then disappear, some people will defend it, other will be wait and see, and when the game gets released it will have its fair share of stalwart defenders.

Water is wet, etc.

[BobSmith101]

Well I can honestly say I have no interest in South Park. But I can understand why they took the project so It's not like I harbour any ill will because it. I would like to know what else they have in pre-production though, as would everyone else on the boards I expect.

 

I'd really like to see an AP 2 or something similiar, maybe closer to DX:HR in gameplay.

Edited February 19, 2012 by BobSmith101

[sorophx]

if not for less then stellar level design and crappy boss fights, I'd say AP was better than Human Revolution. the only thing HR has on AP is huge levels that promote exploration.

 

oh, and the hacking minigame is a lot better in HR

[Bos_hybrid]

if not for less then stellar level design and crappy boss fights, I'd say AP was better than Human Revolution. the only thing HR has on AP is huge levels that promote exploration.

 

oh, and the hacking minigame is a lot better in HR

 

And the gunplay, stealth, cover system, graphics, animation and sound.

 

AP had better characters though.

[BobSmith101]

Well that kind of sums up Obsidian for me. I don't mean this as an insult only an observation.

HR was everything AP should have been as far as game mechanics go. The story/character side of things were better in AP.

Snowblind did a much better job mechanically of a "dungeon crawl" but Obsidian wrote a story characters for DS3 that almost went to the level of being wasted on that kind of game.

Mechanically FO3 was better than NV , but again the character and story elements were superior in NV.

 

I'm sure you see the pattern here. Maybe Obsidian need to team up with another studio to overcome that weakeness which has been in every release.

[Flouride]

 

Mechanically FO3 was better than NV , but again the character and story elements were superior in NV.

 

 

What was so good with FO3's mechanics? It didn't even have factions not to mention it had the "water for beggars to undo all your bad actions" karma system in it...

[BobSmith101]

Mechanically FO3 was better than NV , but again the character and story elements were superior in NV.

 

 

What was so good with FO3's mechanics? It didn't even have factions not to mention it had the "water for beggars to undo all your bad actions" karma system in it...

 

I'm not sure what factions or water beggers have to do with it ? By mechanics I just mean the game system taken in isolation.Factions I would place under character/story.

Edited February 19, 2012 by BobSmith101

[C2B]

How?

 

Why do you think FO3 had better mechanics? How? It basically improved tenfold on the system. Not misusing VATS is actually viable now in NV theres less reasons for some skills to be dumps and the perks aren't as wildly.

Edited February 19, 2012 by C2B

[Flouride]

Because both the faction reputation system and the karma system are part of the game mechanics. That's what they have to do with it. And you didn't really answer my question at all...

[BobSmith101]

I'm going to be straight and say I really don't care enough to argue it. That's not the purpose of the post anyway. The purpose is to highlight Obsidians weakness in gameplay design. If you feel FO:NV has better gameplay design than FO I don't really mind either. But it was based on a system created by Bethesda, which is pretty much what I was getting at when I said they should team up with a studio with more talent in that area.

[Undecaf]

nevermind

Edited February 19, 2012 by Undecaf

[Oner]

But it was based on a system created by Bethesda,

You mean derived from the first two games' system? Because Beth didn't come up with GURPS. The only thing they added was WATS, and even that was based off of the targeting system in 1-2.

[sorophx]

And the gunplay, stealth, cover system, graphics, animation and sound.

I could debate over a lot of these all day long

[BobSmith101]

But it was based on a system created by Bethesda,

You mean derived from the first two games' system? Because Beth didn't come up with GURPS. The only thing they added was WATS, and even that was based off of the targeting system in 1-2.

 

Well if you want to get technical yes. But FO1/2 have nothing to do with how things worked in FO3 where as NV was based on FO3.

[C2B]

But it was based on a system created by Bethesda,

You mean derived from the first two games' system? Because Beth didn't come up with GURPS. The only thing they added was WATS, and even that was based off of the targeting system in 1-2.

 

Well if you want to get technical yes. But FO1/2 have nothing to do with how things worked in FO3 where as NV was based on FO3.

 

And whats the point exactly? NV improved upon the gameplay/mechanics of FO3 in multiple ways.

Edited February 19, 2012 by C2B

[Tigranes]

I played AP a lot, lot more than DXHR, but that might have a lot to do with the nonlinearity and good writing, both of which were sorely lacking in the latter. I think HR did better at core shooting mechanics (I liked AP's, but can see how it pissed people off) and level design, but that's about it. I actually think the big thing that killed AP was polish and the appearance of being an AAA title. People weren't impressed enough and AP didn't look 'solid' enough in the first 2 hours for them to keep trying and discover all the good stuff. With something like HR, most people keep going because nothing stands out so bad to make you stop. It's not quite the ye olde television least-objectionable argument, but that logic does drive a substantial amount of video game reception.

[Flouride]

I'm going to be straight and say I really don't care enough to argue it. That's not the purpose of the post anyway. The purpose is to highlight Obsidians weakness in gameplay design. If you feel FO:NV has better gameplay design than FO I don't really mind either. But it was based on a system created by Bethesda, which is pretty much what I was getting at when I said they should team up with a studio with more talent in that area.

 

I'm not arguing, I'm debating and that in mind I really did want to hear why you think FO3 mechanics are better than FNV's.

 

Personally I don't see that Obsidian has a weakness in gameplay desing, they've only done 2 games that didn't borrow the gameplay mechanics from the previous version of the series. That doesn't leave you much room to play around with gameplay mechanics, especially if they are on tight schedule and the publishers want to keep the gameplay very similiar to the original games. They added the companion reputation system to KOTOR2, a mechanic BioWare has since used in pretty much every game they've done. Faction mechanics to FNV and tweaked the badly desgined Karma system from FO3. And that's just few of the changes they've made to the games.

 

DS3 had fantastic gameplay mechanics if you ask me, especially if you consider how fluid and fun it is to play with a controller. Naturally they can't have 125 skills in a game like this, so the mechanics did the job well.

I won't go into AP mechanics as that will turn into bigger hurdle, some of it worked and some of it didn't. And whatever mandates Sega had on the project also didn't help

[Flouride]

I played AP a lot, lot more than DXHR, but that might have a lot to do with the nonlinearity and good writing, both of which were sorely lacking in the latter. I think HR did better at core shooting mechanics (I liked AP's, but can see how it pissed people off) and level design, but that's about it. I actually think the big thing that killed AP was polish and the appearance of being an AAA title. People weren't impressed enough and AP didn't look 'solid' enough in the first 2 hours for them to keep trying and discover all the good stuff. With something like HR, most people keep going because nothing stands out so bad to make you stop. It's not quite the ye olde television least-objectionable argument, but that logic does drive a substantial amount of video game reception.

 

Same here, I'm on my 3rd playthrough of AP and I haven't even finished the DXHR's DLC. DXHR is great game, don't get me wrong, but there's really nothing in the game that would make you go back to the game after you've finished it. At least not for me.

Marketing failed badly on AP. Sega focused too much on the word ACTION in their marketing when the game plays more like a RPG than a action-rpg. Had the shooting mechanics been like the ones Obsidian wanted I think a lot more people would have made it past Saudi-Arabia. Graphics wise, there's nothing wrong with AP, except the few occasional UE bugs. It's solid, not great, but it gets the job done.

 

And whoever came up with the masterplan of releasing the game after ME2 and not before like it was supposed to, should be fired from SEGA.

[C2B]

Personally I don't see that Obsidian has a weakness in gameplay desing,

 

While I agree with you. I'd say they got recently a lot better in gameplay design (Which was probably also the result of staff changes). KOTOR2 and NWN2 (OC) aren't exactly "good". Especially when it comes to encounter design.

[Flouride]

 

While I agree with you. I'd say they got recently a lot better in gameplay design (Which was probably also the result of staff changes). KOTOR2 and NWN2 (OC) aren't exactly "good". Especially when it comes to encounter design.

 

 

I can hardly remember the encounters in NWN2 and KOTOR2, so no comment on this.

[sorophx]

just to add, I played through HR without firing a single shot (except for boss fights, of course), so I'm in no position to compare HR's and AP's shooting mechanic. that's one thing I was missing in AP, stealth

[Lexx]

Meh, I wouldn't really compare the two games. They do have some similarities, but their focus areas are pretty different.

 

Though, I would like it to have DX:HR's mapping in AP.

 

 

I find DS3 to be a very good game when it comes to the gameplay (and stuff). The camera view and such was annoying, but other than that it's a very solid game, imo.

[Gorth]

I can hardly remember the encounters in NWN2 and KOTOR2, so no comment on this.

The only thing I remember from Kotor2 was I thought there was waaaay too many robots to fight. It probably didn't help that the entire introduction level was a fight against renegade robots. NWN2 scores no points for encounter design. Endless spawning enemies that hump out of thin air is a declararion of bankruptcy designwise. Not just because I wasted a lot of skill points invested in my rangers tracking skill.

[BobSmith101]

I don't think there was much wrong with KOTOR2 for a game it's time (but again it was built on KOTOR) except that they never got to finish it. The backlash was from its state of completion and that overshadowed any other problems.