Obsidian Project to be announced at GDC 2014

[AKstalker47]

People here dont like cute steel beasts with big guns? i know everyone here loves RPGs and thats they are there bread and butter when it comes to gaming (i love them too) but come on lots of gamers love tanks and this one is diffrent in that its dealing with ultra modern tanks not WW2 and korean / cold war era tanks.

[C2B]

Not mass layoffs, but it feels like there's someone leaving once per week

 

____

 

Hope a dev can anwser how many projects they are working on besides the three I know of.

 

I can assure you. Nope. So far mainly personal reasons. And nobody that would have to leave because of this game.

 

As for projects.

 

Pillars of Eternity

Second Kickstarter Planning

Armored Warfare

Skyforge

Unannounced Game (Could turn out to be DLC for Stick of Truth or something bigger)

Multiple Avellone/Feargus Pitches (No idea at which state)

[Blarghagh]

 

Pretty much all knowledge of motion and the principles of animation spring from old black and white cartoons, as well as a lot of examples of how not to do it are on display very strongly and you can actually learn a lot from it that you can apply to CG Animation, both good and bad. Paperman is a great example of trying to emulate that.

And UE4 sprang from UE1.

Doesn't mean it has any use whatsoever to have devs learn the UE1 stuff nowadays if they later need to work on UE4.

 

 

So CG is inherently superior to 2D animation, is it? It's an upgrade, like EU1 to EU4? It's the "better" tool to use?

 

To be clear, I agree with you that there is nothing of value for Obsidian to get out of this project. But your argument still doesn't work. While using different tools to make it, CG and 2D animation are still subject to exactly the same rules and requirements. A 2D and a 3D animator need to know their way around a human face, they need to know how to apply anticipation and follow through. Those are the important skills for an animator - the tools used to make it are a secondary concern.

 

The tools are not the issue here. Single Player RPGs and MMO Tank games only have a few overlaps and otherwise have completely different rules and requirements. The lessons learned from making these MMOs aren't very useful for making the games Obsidian makes (or the games *we* want Obsidian to make, anyway). In the same way a RTS developer really has no need to make a racing game. The tools don't come into it - you can make an RTS and a racing game using the same tools, art pipelines, engines, etc.

[C2B]

 

To be clear, I agree with you that there is nothing of value for Obsidian 

 

 

 

 

EHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

 

You would have to define that value here. Because there are multiple things of value already here for Obsidian just by them making this game. I'm just going to assume you mean design wise.

 

Then yes.

Edited March 20, 2014 by C2B

[Aoyagi]

I'm not exactly fond of the website (scrolling-only navigation, hnnngh), that the forums are separate, the name. Other than that sure, why not. I wish best of luck and am looking forward to more information (as the site is pretty scarce on any real information).

Edited March 20, 2014 by Aoyagi

[Keyrock]

Well, the tank game, I'm sure, will appeal to some people.  I'm not one of those people.

[Gorgon]

Tank sim, how awesome is that. 

[Gorgon]

I only hope it's a really nerdy one as opposed to some kind of point and click RTS affair.

[Gumbercules]

It would have been nice for the secret project to have been a big budget RPG, but I'm mainly interested/invested in Obsidian's Kickstarter projects anyway so I'm not too bummed out. Also, it's possible that this is still just the aftermath of their XBone project getting canceled and having to fire a bunch of people and scramble for new work. There's still hope that post-Kickstarter, post-South Park, and post-relationship-with-Paradox, they'll be able to find better, more appropriate work.

 

I really hope their next Kickstarter comes soon, and is more compelling than the hints that Feargus has given.

[HoonDing]

Fallout 4 better be out soon so Obsidian can throw themselves at Hines' feet for a FO4 expansion and no longer bother with these embarrassing Russian shovelware projects.

[Death Machine Miyagi]

I had to double-check to make sure it wasn't April Fools Day. 

 

But whatever. Obsidian has to pay the bills, I suppose.

[Serrano]

 

Well it gives Obsidian an income while they work on PoE and experience in areas they don't normally get to practice with, which they can then put to use in other games.

 

There's NOTHING from MMO's you WANT to put in regular RPG's. If you do, you murder your own product.

I guess there's still the income, true.

 

 

Experience creating and  making the most of destructible terrain, hands-on experience designing adversarial maps, competitive shooter and games with and arcade/simulation feel, multiplayer networking ect. MMO doesn't have to mean it will be like World of Warcraft (The trailer certainly didn't look like that type of game), don't forget that Planetside is an MMO as well. 

Edited March 20, 2014 by Serrano

[Tigranes]

Very difficult to feel anything but disappointment. I can only imagine they didnt want to fire anybody so soon. Or perhaps they are hoping these kinds of projects can give obsidian direct revenue allowing them to pursue RPG projevts more independently..

[Lysen]

I can see why they haven't been trying to hype it on the forums. We're not the target audience

 

Yeah, that's why I didn't expect much from GDC announcement. Still, Obsidian making a WoT clone - this is quite surprising. Or maybe not, considering South Park and Skyforge.

[Flouride]

Very difficult to feel anything but disappointment. I can only imagine they didnt want to fire anybody so soon. Or perhaps they are hoping these kinds of projects can give obsidian direct revenue allowing them to pursue RPG projevts more independently..

 

To me it seems it's all about keeping their staff which I can understand and respect, but at the same time the selfish fanboy inside of me wants to scream in disappointment.

 

I can only hope that PoE and South Park opens them loads of new options so that they can focus more on making the games most of us love and not something that we don't really expect from them. I personally will most likely end up playing the game if it's about the same quality as World of Tanks, but it's not something I want my favourite company working on, since there's less good crpgs in the world than there are action games.

[LordCrash]

I can't even express my level of disappointment.....   

 

Of course Obsidian is free to do whatever they want to do (or need to do) but personally I don't like that at all. 

[Zoraptor]

Hey, Wheel of Time fans! You know how Obsidian and Red Something were planning on making a WoT game? Well, I've some good news, and some bad news...

 

(While I feel somewhat sympathetic towards anyone who expected a big RPG class announcement the lack of hype was telling given how much overt build up there was for the P(o)E kickstarter and other game announcements)

[LordCrash]

The problem with this project is imo that the core competencies of Obsidian are wasted. You don't need a great storyline, well written characters, a great choice and consequence system or any other RPG competency for that kind of game. Though I understand that people at OE want to do something else than RPGs from time to time and I wish them luck...

[Oerwinde]

I was assuming it was going to be the new Kickstarter, as I believe Feargus or whatever said they would be ready to talk about it around March, so its disappointing, but if it keeps Obsidian going so they can make more high quality RPGs, then so be it.

[C2B]

The problem with this project is imo that the core competencies of Obsidian are wasted. You don't need a great storyline, well written characters, a great choice and consequence system or any other RPG competency for that kind of game. Though I understand that people at OE want to do something else than RPGs from time to time and I wish them luck...

 

Ehhhh, more or less. The company specifics should still carry through and nearly everyone who actually specializes in the things you mentioned is working on Pillars of Eternity.

[Leferd]

Not that this has any real bearing or will correlate into sales, but for what it's worth, the World of Tanks Twitter feed has more followers than Obsidian. So I guess there is a market for this type of game, or its pastiches/derivatives...

Edited March 20, 2014 by Leferd

[Hassat Hunter]

World of Tanks has been around for ages.

You probably looked at the wrong twitter page...

[Sannom]

Well, that was weird. Yet another side project it seems, I really hope they've got something more substancial to work on aside from PoE.

[Hiro Protagonist II]

This is a surprise. I played World of Tanks for nearly two years before moving on. Great game and had a lot of fun with it. Also learnt a lot by looking up military history, famous military figures and watching documentaries on tanks and tank commanders. So I got a bit of an education out of it as well.

 

Not sure how WoT is doing now. Whether they still have the same number of players. Tried out World of Warplanes but not really my kind of game. I won't be playing this as it looks very much like WoT and as I've said, I've moved on. I wish Obsidian the best though.

Edited March 20, 2014 by Hiro Protagonist II

[Bryy]

The problem with this project is imo that the core competencies of Obsidian are wasted. 

I... I don't think you are able to really make that call....