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Tyranny + Bastard's Wound Expansion Thread

LESS T_T

Arcane
Joined
Oct 5, 2012
Messages
13,582
Codex 2014
Well, E3 is a month away.
 

Quillon

Arcane
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Dec 15, 2016
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5,214
In additional to DLC, they could be upgrading the game/engine to have some Deadfire visuals, might be that what's taking so long. Or if its post-main story DLC, all the -unnecessary for a first game- "Conquest" choices combined with the story choices so far might be giving them a headache to build upon. Or I might be assuming too much.
 

Abu Antar

Turn-based Poster
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Enjoy the Revolution! Another revolution around the sun that is. Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Pathfinder: Wrath I'm very into cock and ball torture I helped put crap in Monomyth
Tyranny had good ideas, but the implementation of those ideas soured the experience. It had its moments. What bothered me most, beside the repetitive combat and enemy types, was the women in high positions everywhere and how they talked to you. Seemed more like a fantasy historic setting with people from our time.
 

Starwars

Arcane
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Sweden
Tyranny's greatest failure was that it turned on the awesome "you're a fucking Fatebinder and people are afraid of you" thing as soon as you go into Act II and just reduced you to... standard RPG fare, running errands for people left and right in endless combat encounters.

Found that to be kind of a problem in Expeditions: Viking as well, when wanting to ally with one of the factions in England. I mean, yeah... I get that we need to win their confidence, but they completely failed to "cover up" the fact that the game uses you as an errand boy. Feels problematic.
 
Joined
Jan 17, 2015
Messages
781
Tyranny had good ideas, but the implementation of those ideas soured the experience. It had its moments. What bothered me most, beside the repetitive combat and enemy types, was the women in high positions everywhere and how they talked to you. Seemed more like a fantasy historic setting with people from our time.

That was never a problem for me since I murdered everyone.
 

LESS T_T

Arcane
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Codex 2014
"A bit more news on this in the near future", and Paradox's view on Tyranny's sales: https://www.pcgamesn.com/tyranny/tyranny-sales-paradox-obsidian

Why didn't Tyranny sell? Paradox on Obsidian's RPG "everyone was hoping would do better"

Obsidian’s Tyranny is destined to be remembered as one of the boldest RPGs of the decade - not that anything so rote as destiny would figure into a world ruled over by an all-powerful but unseen genderless communist. It also felt uniquely timely, releasing as it did right on top of the election of a US president many believed had the potential to become a tyrant.

But even the combination of those factors couldn’t translate into mad sales. Speaking at Paradox Con in Stockholm this weekend, the company’s top figures voiced disappointment over what they know was a brave and brilliant follow-up to Pillars of Eternity.

Tyranny%20review.jpg


“Tyranny did ok,” says Paradox CEO Fred Wester.

“We’re overall ok with it, I think,” echoes Shams Jorjani, Paradox’s vice president of business development. “Everyone was hoping that it would do better.”

In fact, Tyranny’s performance at release came in just under the Swedish publisher’s expectations.

“The game’s really solid, it still has a lot of interest,” Wester expands. “A lot of people are still on the fence to buy it. I think we will see a long tail on that game with people coming in and playing later on as well. But it didn’t really meet the expectations we set for it initially, no.”

Next question, then: why? Wester points to a tough launch window in November - a month in which other great games, including Ubisoft’s Watch Dogs 2, struggled to punch through the pre-Christmas noise. Jorjani thinks Tyranny’s timing issue goes much broader, arguing that the appetite for ‘90s style RPGs has already been somewhat sated through crowdfunding.

war%20games%20tyranny.png


“Obsidian did a great job of capitalising on the timing of Kickstarter and the wave of nostalgia for these type of titles,” goes his hypothesis. “We've seen that most of the titles after Pillars of Eternity, if you look at Wasteland, Torment - they haven't been anywhere near that kind of success. So maybe it's that a lot of nostalgia fed into the initial bubble and that's why. These games have a market, but it's never gonna be that peak [again].”

Jorjani draws a parallel to revivalist point-and-click adventure games and the initial warmth for a fondly remembered genre.

“But once people started playing them, they were like, ‘I kind of know why they aren't prevalent anymore,’” he says. “This form of gameplay isn’t really working in today's environment.”

At home - although perhaps he’s exaggerating for emphasis - Jorjani plays with Netflix on one screen, a stream on another, and his phone in his hand.

tyranny2_0.jpg


“I can play Kerbal Space Program that way, or Cities: Skylines. But if it’s Tyranny, I want to read every single word and savour the words, because I know that the team over at Obsidian put a lot of effort and love into writing those words. I want to make sure that I’m paying it the right kind of respect.”

Wester shoulders the responsibility for Tyranny’s marketing, which ran with the slogan: 'Sometimes, evil wins.' It was an approach that wisely brought Tyranny’s twist on RPG morality to the fore - but didn’t touch so much on its singular world and cast.

“We might have emphasised the wrong things when we sold the game,” he says. “I don't know. It didn't really come up to what we thought it could.”

“It’s very dark,” offers Jorjani on the game’s theme. “It’s more niche in that sense, it absolutely is.”

tyranny%20launch%20trailer%20crystal%20lake.jpg


After an existence plagued by cancelled projects, it seemed as if Obsidian had finally found in Paradox a publisher who understood them. The two companies worked together back-to-back on both Pillars of Eternity and Tyranny - and when the latter was announced, Wester said they’d “identified a partner whose development and design ideals are a perfect match for our own.”

“I would love to work with Obsidian [again],” says Wester on the subject now. “They’re a great team, super talented. Who knows? We might just work together again some time in the future.”

It’s another occasion where CEO and business developer speak practically in unison.

“We'd love to work with Obsidian,” enthuses Jorjani. “They’re incredibly, incredibly talented, they're very, very passionate.”

tyranny%20good%20playthrough.jpg


Jorjani does volunteer, however, that the two companies have had their “fair share of headbutting” over the course of their working relationship. It sounds as if Stockholm and California came together with a certain amount of chafing.

“I think there are slight cultural differences in how we work,” he theorises. “Sweden is consensus-driven, we try to have very flat hierarchies. It comes back to a lot of different factors but, at least at Paradox, we push a lot of major decisions down to people in the organisation. Not every company works that way. Some companies are not as comfortable with decisions being taken at that level, so they're pushed upwards. We end up with this weird situation where we can't have our CEO involved in every discussion.”

It’s important, too, to point out that Paradox aren’t in a position to publish everything Obsidian work on. Though the publisher’s profits increased 51% in the last year, they’re still small fry next to a Sega or Ubisoft.

“We talk to Obsidian all the time, we love them, but while our projects are much bigger today than they were three to five years ago, they do a lot of big projects that are far outside of the reach that we do,” says Jorjani. “That’s also a factor: what will they work on? What do we want to work on? Finding a good fit.

tyranny%20conquest%20mode.jpg


“But I'd definitely be open. We want to make RPGs that are the best in class. If we can get the other factors to work it will be great.”

Though Tyranny’s underperformance leaves room for questions and theories, there’s no doubt that these two companies made an exceptional game together - one where their shared penchant for replayability was able to meet in an astonishingly reactive RPG.

“In that respect we're quite happy,” says Jorjani. “It is a largely underappreciated gem. I think we see that also on the stats side of things. A lot of people have wishlisted the game, are very interested in it, but they know that they're not quite done with Pillars yet.

“I think that, hopefully, it will take off a bit more in the long-term sales. We'll see, if we get a couple of expansions out, if that changes anything.”

Jorjani does tease that Tyranny is structured in a modular fashion that makes it ideal for expansion.

“Our publishing voodoo allows us to keep the long tail going which make expansions a more viable proposition,” he notes. “We'll have a bit more news on this in the near future. But we'd love to revisit the world - it ended in a bit of a cliffhanger so there's definitely more to tell there. We'll see what people are asking for.”
 

Infinitron

I post news
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Codex Year of the Donut Serpent in the Staglands Dead State Divinity: Original Sin Project: Eternity Torment: Tides of Numenera Wasteland 2 Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 A Beautifully Desolate Campaign Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Pathfinder: Kingmaker Pathfinder: Wrath I'm very into cock and ball torture I helped put crap in Monomyth
Yikes. That's frank. And yes Paradox, your marketing sucked.

“We've seen that most of the titles after Pillars of Eternity, if you look at Wasteland

Wot
 

Rahdulan

Omnibus
Patron
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5,105
Well, they didn't exactly break their back advertising it from what I remember. Your regular Twitch streamers aren't really the main demographic for this kind of game.
 

Sentinel

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Ommadawn
There we go. Another episode of Publishers completely misunderstanding why a title fails and just blames it on "this style of game isn't appealing anymore."
 

Rev

Arcane
Joined
Feb 13, 2016
Messages
1,180
Lol, they promoted the game like shit and, surprise surprise, it failed commercially. Who would have thought?
Now of course they say "no one wants these kind of games anymore", yeah sure thing just look at how hard D:OS2 is failing right now... oh wait, it's not and it has sold almost as much as Tyranny even though it's still just in Early Access. And I'll be surprised if PoE2 doesn't sell at least 500-600k copies in like six months after its launch.
 

HeatEXTEND

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Nedderlent
There we go. Another episode of Publishers completely misunderstanding why a title fails and just blames it on "this style of game isn't appealing anymore."

Honestly.

"Here, I made you a sundae covered in shit !"
"Welp, I guess people don't like ice cream anymore :( "

uh huh

made an exceptional game together - one where their shared penchant for replayability was able to meet in an astonishingly reactive RPG.

:flamesaw:
 

Kuattro

Augur
Joined
Jun 4, 2015
Messages
401
Location
La Font del Gat
At home - although perhaps he’s exaggerating for emphasis - Jorjani plays with Netflix on one screen, a stream on another, and his phone in his hand.

This explains so much.

Even if it's an exageration, who the fuck plays games like that? When he plays monopoly or trivial, is he watching a film, reading a book and doing his taxes simultaneously? Because that sounds like a sure way to lose a friendship, and not accomplish anything one's triyng to do. Much less have fun.

These people do not enjoy videogames, they probably don't enjoy anything in fact, which is why they need so many things all at the same time, they try to mask the utter fucking emptiness of their existence with anything that distracts them from it.

It was of course clear things were like this just by looking at the most recent Paradox games, but for god's sake, at least don't spew it out loud like a fucking moron, you twat.

Jesus fuck, and nobody present punched him, that's what irks me the most.
 

Abu Antar

Turn-based Poster
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Enjoy the Revolution! Another revolution around the sun that is. Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Pathfinder: Wrath I'm very into cock and ball torture I helped put crap in Monomyth
I know several fans of Obsidian that didn't know of the game even after the game launched. Bad marketing was one reason and a weird launch date was also another reason.
 

santino27

Arcane
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Joined
Oct 1, 2008
Messages
2,678
My team has the sexiest and deadliest waifus you can recruit.
Jorjani thinks Tyranny’s timing issue goes much broader, arguing that the appetite for ‘90s style RPGs has already been somewhat sated through crowdfunding.

“Obsidian did a great job of capitalising on the timing of Kickstarter and the wave of nostalgia for these type of titles,” goes his hypothesis. “We've seen that most of the titles after Pillars of Eternity, if you look at Wasteland, Torment - they haven't been anywhere near that kind of success. So maybe it's that a lot of nostalgia fed into the initial bubble and that's why. These games have a market, but it's never gonna be that peak [again].”

Jorjani draws a parallel to revivalist point-and-click adventure games and the initial warmth for a fondly remembered genre.

“But once people started playing them, they were like, ‘I kind of know why they aren't prevalent anymore,’” he says. “This form of gameplay isn’t really working in today's environment.”

At home - although perhaps he’s exaggerating for emphasis - Jorjani plays with Netflix on one screen, a stream on another, and his phone in his hand.

Wow, very honest answers from Paradox that show, imo, why they're going to continue to be a third tier publisher. 'it didn't meet our #s so we've decided that means the subgenre is mostly dead rather than taking a look in the mirror and wondering if we could have done anything better.'
 
Last edited:

vortex

Fabulous Optimist
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Mar 25, 2016
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Temple of Alvilmelkedic
How to revive isometric cRPG with new gameplay formula? Any ideas?
I think old school nostalgic playstyle needs to change because players could grow tired of it and that would cause developers stop making such games for awhile.
 

Roguey

Codex Staff
Staff Member
Sawyerite
Joined
May 29, 2010
Messages
35,653
How to revive isometric cRPG with new gameplay formula? Any ideas?
I think old school nostalgic playstyle needs to change because players could grow tired of it and that would cause developers stop making such games for awhile.

They just need to make fun games with good content, but not too often.
 

Vorark

Erudite
Joined
Mar 2, 2017
Messages
1,394
Wasn't the PoE DLC split because Paradox said it would sell better or something among these lines? At the time I thought it was a dirty move.
 

Quillon

Arcane
Joined
Dec 15, 2016
Messages
5,214
Don't know who was the shot caller but Feargus explained numerous times that it was to push the expansion early, "instead of 6 months later" when people moved on. What ended up happening was part 1 came out in 5 months and part 2 in 10.
 

Rev

Arcane
Joined
Feb 13, 2016
Messages
1,180
Wasn't the PoE DLC split because Paradox said it would sell better or something among these lines? At the time I thought it was a dirty move.
They never said who was responsible for the decision, but it was said that Paradox would help with their "expertise" in regard to extra-content and how to sell it or something like that, so they probably had something to do with the decision to split the expansion, which apparently didn't sell a lot and in no small part thanks to that decision imo.
 

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