Update #28: What We're Up To

[Vandoon]

Thanks for the update I will look forward to the upcoming posts. This going cold turkey from daily kickstarter updates to weekly updates wil be tough but I am sure I will pull through. The hard part will be stopping my head from cracking open waiting 18mths for the game. I do wish you all the best and am glad to see the organisation going into the project. I look forward to gaining some insight into the development of a game from the ground up. I do hope you and other devs browse the forums (I am sure you do and we have seen some posts already) as there is many great ideas and input being discussed that would be good to see included. I am sure you will get a feel as to what will be popular and suit the world you are building. I am also sure you are now staggered by the truly mammoth task you have been set. All those stretch goals are awesome but make your job huge however it will be spectacular I am sure.

 

Good luck

 

Please ignore the silliness that goes on here

[japol]

Good morning america

 

Not only america is watching and funding you guys

 

Actually,according to this http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/60487-where-is-everyone-from/page__st__180__hl__europe#entry1208187 , approximately 60 % of the backers are from Europe.I guess the US audience is more satisfied with the video games available on the market in recent years.

[Kiya]

If I can just ask one thing...can you please have some mechanic allowing the characters to carry as much loot as the have earned. Was playing some more Skyrim last night and there is nothing more annoying than having to travel back and forth between a dungeon and town multiple times just to sell off the loot.

 

My favourite Skyrim mod is the Bag of Holding - I can't play the game anymore without it, I think it took about a week if that for the mod to appear once tools were released.

 

So don't worry too much over inventory size - I guarantee that inventory size will be one of the first things to recieve attention from modders as soon as any tools are made available.

 

Thanks for the great update Obsidian

[ctwo]

Are we going to see the budgeting once it is done? Trusting you guys at Obsidian is good, being able to check up on you is always better :D

[rjshae]

My favourite Skyrim mod is the Bag of Holding - I can't play the game anymore without it, I think it took about a week if that for the mod to appear once tools were released.

Or the miser's variant: the Bag of Hoarding.

[AwesomeOcelot]

Well, can't speak for Steam, but you don't need Origin for a disk based Collector's Edition.

You just needed to log into your BioWare account (which is the same as an Origin account by now though, however no client is needed).

 

Yeah, I meant the site not the client. I think the game has its own download manager. it was just unclear to me whether the Steam version already had the DLC installed, because normally with Steam games it would tell you this under the DLC tab, but for DA: O it only says you have the key for them.

[Kai]

The nice thing with Skyrim for me was that it cured me of my virtual hoarding issues. After a couple of hours I simply gave up picking up everything and started to compare value to weight for the items that I didn't need instead. While a bag of holding might be nice, I dunno if it's going to be needed as long as the economy is balanced.

[Dormin]

Good morning america

 

Not only america is watching and funding you guys

 

Actually,according to this http://forums.obsidi...pe#entry1208187 , approximately 60 % of the backers are from Europe.I guess the US audience is more satisfied with the video games available on the market in recent years.

 

So..an old school gdr and the old continent appears to be a winning combination

[Gyges]

I for one would love a 100 gb game.

[NerdBoner]

damn, petty people sure do get butthurt over stray comments...

 

Maybe next he will create a separate youtube video listing off the country of every donor, the country's capital and national anthem. Even then people will just say he sung the anthem off pitch.

[Infiltrator_SF]

damn, petty people sure do get butthurt over stray comments...

 

Maybe next he will create a separate youtube video listing off the country of every donor, the country's capital and national anthem. Even then people will just say he sung the anthem off pitch.

 

Damn, that's a whole new level of low, getting butthurt over someone getting butthurt eh?

Edited October 25, 2012 by Infiltrator_SF

[Cantousent]

The sad fact is that there really wasn't something substantial to announce in the latest update. That's not a slam on Obsidian. I think they need to do these updates, even if they have nothing more to say than here is how we are logistically moving the ball forward. I also agree with ctwo about some word regarding budgeting. It's ridiculous to demand that Obsidian air every bit of laundry in public, but a small overview of how they're budgeting the project, speaking in general terms, could be interesting to some members of the community. It's a tight line, to be sure, and I'm sure Obsidian can think of nightmare scenarios where the backers start huge flamewars over budget minutiae, but it could be a good faith gesture if done delicately.

 

As for the current flap over 'Good Morning America,' I also though it was a bit silly. I guess, to put it a different way, I was bemused, but I also think it would have run its course but for two things. First of all, it's a sign of how little we have to discuss in the latest update that we've spent at least a few of the eight pages I see in this thread discussing such a picayune subject. Second of all, whether I think it's a silly or petty point, I also know that folks want to feel included and appreciated. I don't want to get into a spiral of complaining about people complaining about someone complaining, but maybe we could just let folks who's honor and dignity smarts a little for feeling left out express their irritation and then leave it at that. After all, we're all backers, whether we come from Nevada or Nice, St. Louis or Seoul, Madrid or Moscow. Then again, mabye bickering about the number of backers each region has contributed to the project might take our minds off of how little there is to talk about the project at present. :Cant's guffawing icon:

 

I'm looking forward to these weekly updates because, even if feelings can sometimes be a little raw, I enjoy discussing the tid bits of info with you guys.

Edited October 25, 2012 by Cantousent

[Ieo]

The sad fact is that there really wasn't something substantial to announce in the latest update. That's not a slam on Obsidian. I think they need to do these updates, even if they have nothing more to say than here is how we are logistically moving the ball forward. I also agree with ctwo about some word regarding budgeting. It's ridiculous to demand that Obsidian air every bit of laundry in public, but a small overview of how they're budgeting the project, speaking in general terms, could be interesting to some members of the community. It's a tight line, to be sure, and I'm sure Obsidian can think of nightmare scenarios where the backers start huge flamewars over budget minutiae, but it could be a good faith gesture if done delicately.

 

I definitely agree with this; overview information about general processes in a traditionally black box business is already interesting to me, but there's no reason to get into particularly fine details because project management can be fluid with respect to timelines and the same goes with budget. It's completely unreasonable to expect Obsidian to somehow defend their particular business choices--budget, really?--when the players have no experience in the business and development end of things to begin with. Ignorant entitlement at its best.

 

This was still a Kickstarter, not a private startup investment scheme.

[septembervirgin]

I see three separate types of areas.

 

Make pastoral areas with many atmospheric components. These areas can be used for camping, exploration, puzzle solving, lethal trap removal (or triggering), resource discovery or purchase, looking at something pretty, meeting Inviolable NPCs.

 

Make dangerous areas with very few atmospheric components. These areas have dangers aplenty, treasures, hindering traps (rather than lethal) that attract opponent notice, and potentially hostile/vulnerable NPCs. NPCs should work in ordered tandem in most cases, using treasures that are effective for them.

 

Make conditionally inhospitable areas with some atmospheric components that only activate when a player's character is close by. These areas can be dangerous if the plot signifies it becomes dangerous or if a player's character activates a ritual or somehow acts (or has acted) in a way that upsets the equilibrium. The traps in this area, if any, should be activated by magic sequences, hidden controls, or command words. The NPCs should be skittish or or non-apparent with a few clues or cues that the area could become more dangerous.

[Monte Carlo]

Although I think it would be a waste of money to hire a full-time community manager, I think a gifted (local) intern would fight for the chance to take that job on.

 

Go on Obsidian, pay if forward and give a young, gifted person the same opening in the games industry I know Josh got back in the day. He didn't turn out half-bad, after all.

 

Plus, we get fresh meat.

[Cantousent]

Fionavar does an excellent job managing this community, and there is no one better to watch over the flock. Plus, dude knows his wine.

[D'rez]

Although I think it would be a waste of money to hire a full-time community manager, I think a gifted (local) intern would fight for the chance to take that job on.

 

Go on Obsidian, pay if forward and give a young, gifted person the same opening in the games industry I know Josh got back in the day. He didn't turn out half-bad, after all.

 

Plus, we get fresh meat.

 

Full-time might be a bit to much at this stage, but when development gets further along the road I don't think its such waste of money at all. By the time the game wil reach alpha there will be a lot more people like you and me following the project then there are now. On a budget like this a "full-time" community manager ain't a financial issue. Specially if you take in mind this a kickstarter project, backed by who? Right! The community. Thats why a community manager should get a key-role. He (or she) should be a vital link between the developer and the backers.

[Monte Carlo]

Cant I mean a link between PE game dev update goodness and us. Fionavar doesnt do that, a different role.

[Theobeau]

For myself, I appreciated that OBS is trying to regularly update the community, even if the news is "Hey, we really are working!"

 

Some 74,000 people have backed this project, investing OBS with both their hard earned money but also their hopes and aspirations for a complex, character and narrative driver cRPG of the likes that hasn't been seen since the golden age of cRPGs.

 

While it must be almost impossible to manage all the conflicting expectations keeping everyone in the loop is a great first step.

 

The suggestion of an official community liaison is a great one for as the devs get stuck into the project, the temptation will be to cut back on the less "essential" things such as frequency of updates. Hell, look at WL2. Acknowledging Fargo's heroic KS efforts, once the project got stuck with the nitty gritty, the time between updates has really drifted upwards.

 

Finally, as someone living down under, can't say I'm too upset that they opened with "Good Morning America".

 

Who knows, maybe OBS should consider using this to acknowledge all the nationalities of their backers. It'd be great for everyone to see how far and wide their fan base has spread!

[rjshae]

^^^^

There is such a thing as too much information. Companies don't feed weekly reports to their stockholders. I don't think most of us contributed just so they could feed the forum discussions.

[Cantousent]

I think Rob McGuinness (and I know I just murdered his name) used to be kind of the unoffiicial community manager for NWN2. If that's true, then there's precedent for Obsidz doing exactly what Monte mentioned. Now that I understand, in the clear light of morning, it makes sense. I was just sticking up for Fio, but the big scaly bastard doesn't need *my* help. lol

[kirottu]

This thread made me understand why there is so much ego stroking in games.

[Monte Carlo]

Am happy to stroke Fionavar's ego he's been a valuable constant in this community as long as I can remember and gets precious little praise for it.

[Lady Evenstar]

"Good morning America how are you?" is the first line of the chorus to The City of New Orleans ...

 

[Jaesun]

I think Rob McGuinness (and I know I just murdered his name) used to be kind of the unoffiicial community manager for NWN2. If that's true, then there's precedent for Obsidz doing exactly what Monte mentioned. Now that I understand, in the clear light of morning, it makes sense. I was just sticking up for Fio, but the big scaly bastard doesn't need *my* help. lol

 

Rob was AWESOME! <3 I miss him.