Obsidian General Discussion Thread

[Infinitron]

http://codewriteplay.com/2017/08/07/gamedev-breakdown-3-afternoon-obsidian-entertainment/

GameDev Breakdown #3: An Afternoon with Obsidian Entertainment



A road show from Irvine California! I traveled to the sacred ground that gave us Fallout: New Vegas, South Park: The Stick of Truth, and the awesome new Pillars of Eternity series. Hear about my tour, lunch with the team, and also how my USB microphone scared the TSA and got me briefly detained.

Infinite thanks to Mikey Dowling and the team at Obsidian for being so welcoming, for a fantastic lunch at Rance’s Chicago Pizza, and a goodie bag worth buying additional luggage for. Check out their charity side project: #OEWLive (Yes, that’s Obsidian Entertainment Wrestling) on the Obsidian Twitch channel!

Finally, please consider helping the podcast by reviewing and subscribing on iTunes, or by clicking through the site’s banner on your way to Amazon!

 

[Infinitron]

End of the grind?
"I think the developer of any kind of game needs to be respectful of a player’s time, and if you make long-form games you have a lot more time that needs to be treated preciously," says Matt MacLean, lead narrative designer on Obsidian's Tyranny. I ask MacLean whether he believes mandatory grinding has gone out of fashion in RPGs specifically. "I think as more games grow up and away from the D&D model of knocking down doors to kill monsters to knock down bigger doors to kill bigger monsters there will be less and less emphasis on ‘grinding’ monsters and more emphasis on rewarding the player for completing quests, collecting things, exploring areas.

"Seen from a very abstract level, I think very old RPG games failed in that, if you were not winning at a particular battle, your only recourse was to play bully and tackle older/easier encounters until you level up and are ready to tackle the previous impossible obstacle."

MacLean also worked on South Park: The Stick of Truth. The combat in this undemanding RPG was pretty simple, with the emphasis instead on enjoying the jokes and exploring an authentic version of the show's town. "The target audience factors into most every decision we make on a game—we have to be very familiar with what concepts players will already know coming into a game. On a game like South Park, our intended audience was ‘the South Park fan’ and while we could safely assume a lot of South Park fans are RPG gamers, the game has to be aimed at the entire venn diagram, not just the overlap that’s easiest to entertain.

"South Park’s length is more a function of the story and humour than the demands of the audience, but certainly the game’s relatively modest difficulty was driven in part by [us being] conscious that it’s better to err on the hardcore gamers calling Stick of Truth too easy than to have a massive swaths of fans stop laughing because they’re dying over and over again."

Pillars of Eternity was made for a different crowd, one deeply familiar with the Infinity Engine era of RPGs from the late '90s and early '00s. It's fair to assume the player will be more patient when it comes to customisation, absorbing lore and strategic combat. "Whereas South Park had character creation simplified down to one choice (pick your class), Pillars opened with nearly a dozen classes, a bevy of races, attributes and skills to customise—this deluge of options was both acceptable for the target audience of Pillars and, based on Kickstarter input, many of them craved this level of detailed character customisation and would likely have found too much simplicity to be a bad thing."

Instead of thinking about hours invested, they considered the different ways you might spend that time. "Some players will read every line of text, examine every object, and take full advantage of a real-time-with-pause system to ponder their options, others skip every bit of reading allowable and with most folks resting somewhere between those extremes, estimating where the player will be after X number of hours only gets you so far," MacLean says.

"Taken as a whole, it’s largely meaningless for us to think in terms of ‘hours in’ and most pacing is established by character level, quest completion, or some combination of the two."

 

[Latelistener]

Whoever did this must have had the same fingers. I'm not making fun of genetic disorders, I'm just curious how did he get the job.

Spoiler

And this is just psychedelic. I guess it was made to remind you how small and miserable you are in this life.

Spoiler

 

[Roguey]

"I think as more games grow up and away from the D&D model of knocking down doors to kill monsters to knock down bigger doors to kill bigger monsters there will be less and less emphasis on ‘grinding’ monsters and more emphasis on rewarding the player for completing quests, collecting things, exploring areas.

Not as long as there's Bethesda and Blizzard.

"Seen from a very abstract level, I think very old RPG games failed in that, if you were not winning at a particular battle, your only recourse was to play bully and tackle older/easier encounters until you level up and are ready to tackle the previous impossible obstacle."

How about playing better?

 

[Iznaliu]

Not as long as there's Bethesda

Bethesda will always remain a bit cocooned from the rest of the industry.

 

[Quillon]

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1577897829/scrimish-pillars-of-eternity-decks-battle-on

 

[Infinitron]

Scrimish: Pillars of Eternity Decks -- 10 Min Strategy Game
Addictive 10 min strategy game. Expandable to large multiplayer games. Battle On!
By Danny Zondervan

Scrimish is a fast moving card game that pits player against player in an epic 10 minute battle of strategy, memory, and misdirection.

Protect companions Eder, Pallegina, Aloth and Maia in these Pillars of Eternity Themed decks. Uncover your opponent's companion card to win the battle.

What are some features?
1. Scrimish is extremely simple to learn but has strategy deep enough for an MIT grad to lose their mind over.

2. It's expandable to large team or free-for all games. Play 2v2, 2v2v2, 8v8, 1v1v1v1v1, etc.

3. For ages 5 or older (recommended age is 8+ but those young kids are getting smarter these days)

4. Relies on strategy and memory. Luck helps but does not play a big part.

5. It's portable. Put it in your pocket. Then pull it out when you get to your destination.

6. Every game is different, and you'll want to play over and over again to try new ways of outsmarting your opponent.

OK...

 

[Projas]

What, why

 

[Prime Junta]

What, why

 

[Iznaliu]

Who was involved in the decision to make this?

 

[santino27]

They've already doubled their (fairly small) goal, so I guess 441 people were actually waiting for this. Huh.

 

[Bonerbill]

They've already doubled their (fairly small) goal, so I guess 441 people were actually waiting for this. Huh.

No surprise. Card games and board games do well on kickstarter.

 

[vonAchdorf]

Danny is pretty good looking for a card game geek.

 

[The Fish]

A walk around obsidian entertainment's office.

 

[Quillon]

Later on he talks about MCA's consuming Star Wars shelf. Both Feagus and Josh give credit to MCA whenever they can, too bad MCA doesn't return the favor and shits on Obs as indirectly as possible every chance he gets

 

[Infinitron]

A walk around obsidian entertainment's office.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2017-08-29-watch-we-take-a-walk-around-obsidian-entertainment

Watch: We take a walk around Obsidian Entertainment
And narrowly avoid their secret project.

Earlier this month Bertie and I visited Obsidian Entertainment, the excellent, proudly independent role-playing game developer based in Irvine, California. There's plenty of history there, from the team's work on games like Pillars of Eternity, Alpha Protocol and Fallout: New Vegas to its genesis at Black Isle Studios.

And we'll be talking about all of that stuff and more over the next couple of weeks. We've got a lot to share. But to begin with, before we delve into the origins of Fallout or the remarkable stories behind some of the developer's canceled projects, I wanted to share something a little more personal.

I asked Obsidian's CEO, Feargus Urquhart, to give me a guided tour around the studio itself and introduce me to some of the people that work there. Join us in the video below as we have a wander around and a bit of a chat about what they're up to.

Oh boy.

 

[Anthony Davis]

A walk around obsidian entertainment's office.

That handsome fella at 14:36.

 

[Alienman]

Nice video. Impressive office.

 

[TT1]

A walk around obsidian entertainment's office.

I tend to get emotional watching these videos, seeing this whole story together in one place. Man, I'd love to meet these guys and take a walk in this place.

 

[Quillon]

Share your favourite moments from Obsidian games and win consoles!

We're indulging in a bit of a celebration of the work of veteran role-playing game studio Obsidian Entertainment over the next couple of weeks, and as part of that we would love you to share memories of your favourite moments from Obsidian's classic games, past and present. We'll be rewarding our favourite memories with prizes!

The prizes come courtesy of Paradox Interactive, which is publishing a couple of Obsidian titles this month: the console version of the studio's old-school role-player Pillars of Eternity, out now; and the first expansion for last year's villainous RPG Tyranny, called Bastard's Wound, released on 7th September. Here's what our lucky winners will take away:

• One Xbox One S console with a copy of Pillars of Eternity
• One PlayStation 4 console with a copy of Pillars of Eternity
• 10 pairs of PC keys for Pillars of Eternity and Tyranny (the base games)
• The console winners and six of the PC key winners also get an exclusive limited edition Pillars or Tyranny medal, as awarded to members of the Obsidian development team after launching the games

To enter, simply share your favourite moment from an Obsidian Entertainment game in the comments below this article. (You'll need to log in or register an account with Eurogamer to do so.) We're accepting entries up to and including Tuesday 12th September.

 

[Turisas]

Can you opt for cash reward instead? I'd rather not go through the hassle of selling the console because that's the only thing they're good for.

 

[Lahey]

Spoiler

Tie Kreia to your transition for free keys.

 

[Iznaliu]

Later on he talks about MCA's consuming Star Wars shelf. Both Feagus and Josh give credit to MCA whenever they can, too bad MCA doesn't return the favor and shits on Obs as indirectly as possible every chance he gets

I think MCA has became too used to video game stardom and has thus became out of touch.

 

[IHaveHugeNick]

The way MCA has been acting makes it obvious that the real reason for his departure is that at some point he became an insufferable diva.

 

[Infinitron]

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2...udio-turned-down-a-game-of-thrones-video-game

Why Obsidian turned down a Game of Thrones video game

With the penultimate season of Game of Thrones finished on TV and a colossal amount of people talking about it, it's hard to imagine any video game maker ever passing up the opportunity to get a piece of that franchise pie. But as I found out recently, Obsidian Entertainment did - it turned down Game of Thrones.

Obsidian - the creator of Fallout: New Vegas, Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic 2, South Park: The Stick of Truth and Pillars of Eternity (among many others) - was offered the opportunity to make a game based on George R. R. Martin's story in 2005 by Electronic Arts (well, EA Partners).

It was six years before Season One of Game of Thrones aired on TV, nevertheless Obsidian co-founder and CEO Feargus Urquhart was well aware of the Song of Ice and Fire books - he'd followed them since the series started in 1996. He knew intimately what he was turning down, and he believed he had a good reason why.

The promo for the very first season of HBO's Game of Thrones.

"My feeling was, understanding the IP at the time, it's about this political intrigue, and people's connection to the IP is to all these characters - that's how the books are written, each chapter is a person and what's happening to them," Urquhart told me when I visited Obsidian recently.

"Other than what weird stuff is going on beyond The Wall, and the dragons, and some hint [of fantasy/magic], there are no magic users, there are no clerics, no thieves. Basically there's dudes with swords and armour and a little bit of mysticism, but within the main land [the Seven Kingdoms] there's no goblins, no kobolds..."

What would players play beyond a soldier? What would they fight? Not much was known about beyond The Wall at this point. It was really relationships between key characters that set A Song of Ice and Fire off.

"And," Obsidian co-founder and vice president of development Chris Parker added, "you can't give the player a character they can play that is important in this world. All of the important characters are all clearly spelled out and you can't even really go have a conversation with them."

"Looking back at it," added Urquhart, "the only thing we could have done is what BioWare did with Knights of the Old Republic. They basically said Episodes 1-6, you can't touch it, so we're just going to go way back. But even then some stuff had already been written about it in the [Star Wars] Expanded Universe. With George R. R. Martin there was no other... they talked about some history... we could have done that."

Or, do what The Lord of the Rings: War in the North (2011) did and pick on a spin-off thread, in this case the other Fellowship up north who were doing a bunch of stuff to help the main Fellowship Tolkien wrote his books about. Obsidian actually pitched this LOTR idea to Warner, but then Warner bought Snowblind and made War in the North.

"So maybe there could have been something we could have done," said Urquhart, getting back to Game of Thrones, "but we were starting to think more about open-world RPGs, and we wanted our players to have agency, to be important in the world.

"Back then [real-time strategy games] were more relevant and I said, 'I just don't know how we could make... It just feels more like an RTS game.' You have different factions and you put more political intrigue in there."

French developer Cyanide must have felt the same way, or been listening, because in 2011 it tried exactly that. A Game of Thrones: Genesis was an RTS set centuries before the book timeline but sadly it wasn't any good.

Episodic storytelling expert Telltale adapted Game of Thrones much more recently in a well-received series told from the perspective of a footnote-obscure northern family loyal to the iconic Starks.

Surely Obsidian would choose differently today, assuming the deal were right, but back in 2005 things were very different. A Song of Fire and Ice hadn't been blown into the stratosphere by HBO Game of Thrones fever, and it was just one of many game possibilities floating around Obsidian Entertainment. I spent hours with Feargus Urquhart and Chris Parker combing over Obsidian's past and unearthing many more of those possibilities - and I have plenty of tales to tell beginning roughly a week from now. Stay tuned!