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Obsidian General Discussion Thread

Infinitron

I post news
Staff Member
Joined
Jan 28, 2011
Messages
97,228
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
 

Sentinel

Arcane
Joined
Nov 18, 2015
Messages
6,633
Location
Ommadawn
Did he just use a Chris Avellone character in his presentation as a positive example?

I think this confirms it Fairfax. They deeply resent each other and they're mortal enemies who will battle it out until the end times and only one survives, who will use the corpse of the other to create the stars of a new universe while the victor rules over the new planet. The sprinkles in the sky shall remain as an eternal reminder to the inhabitants of this new planet that defying its creator is a hopeless endeavor.
 

Fairfax

Arcane
Joined
Jun 17, 2015
Messages
3,518
Did he just use a Chris Avellone character in his presentation as a positive example?

I think this confirms it Fairfax. They deeply resent each other and they're mortal enemies who will battle it out until the end times and only one survives, who will use the corpse of the other to create the stars of a new universe while the victor rules over the new planet. The sprinkles in the sky shall remain as an eternal reminder to the inhabitants of this new planet that defying its creator is a hopeless endeavor.
Even Infinitron knows that's not my theory and I don't support it. Gotta improve your fanboy game.
 

Sannom

Augur
Joined
Apr 11, 2010
Messages
944
Looks like Aliens: Crucible characters:


The concept art for some of those, from Brian Menze's deviantart :

outta_space_fella_by_brenze.jpg
outta_space_girl_by_brenze.jpg
outta_space_lady_by_brenze.jpg

outta_space_soldier_by_brenze-d4ntapy.jpg
 

Quillon

Arcane
Joined
Dec 15, 2016
Messages
5,214
DLyE_hHXcAAQxrO.jpg:large

Who's the speaker? BN?

Also that 3D model looks strange, a hairless orlan's sneaky idle anim?

 

LESS T_T

Arcane
Joined
Oct 5, 2012
Messages
13,582
Codex 2014
Who's the speaker? BN?

http://wnconf.com/en#program

Michael Kemski, Programmer, Obsidian Entertainment
UI/UX: Anticipating Challenges and Pitfalls

What are the major challenges and pitfalls to consider when planning your UI/UX? How should your development, production, and publishing team collaborate to create ideal solutions? What techniques can be leveraged to ensure your process is iterable, scalable, and efficient? We’ll deconstruct Obsidian’s strategies to UI/UX and review valuable experiences learned during the development of Armored Warfare to identify the strengths and weaknesses of approaches to critical problems.

There's also a Larian talk:

11 Octoboer
15:30 - 16:30

Kirill Perevozchikov, Head of Marketing, Larian Studios
Divinity: Original Sin 2: Marketing Post Mortem

Discover the highs, the lows and the lessons learned during marketing campaign of Divinity: Original Sin 2 by Larian Studios. Explore the 3-phase marketing campaign: Kickstarter, Early Access, Global PC Launch. Dive into Larian’s communication strategy and how we approached it with a limited budget of an independent video game developer.
 

Infinitron

I post news
Staff Member
Joined
Jan 28, 2011
Messages
97,228
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
Oh hey, Boyarsky & Cain again: https://www.pcgamesn.com/fallout/fallout-vault-boy

The silly stories behind Fallout's biggest icons

vault%20boy.png


Vault Boy. Power armour. The overseer. Deathclaws. There are some elements of Fallout so intrinsic to the series that it is easy to forget they were ever invented. Perhaps they never were. It may be that we all came from the vaults and the Fallout games are simply a myth we keep telling ourselves. A reminder of a painful history we cannot bear to remember yet must not forget.

Only, sorry, no: the other week I spoke to a bunch of friendly, middle-aged RPG developers who claimed they had made the first Fallout. Here are the decision-making processes by which they settled on some of Fallout’s most iconic symbols.

Vault Boy
fallout%20vault%20boy.png


Vault Boy, whose grin now haunts mainstream clothing outlets and the cosplay corners of show floors, came to art director Leonard Boyarsky while he was stuck in traffic.

“Vault Boy was the solution to a problem we had,” Boyarsky tells me. “We had all these icons I helped design, and one day I looked at them on my screen and thought, ‘I have no idea what I’m looking at here’.”

As a solution to this convoluted and confusing UI, Boyarsky decided that Fallout 1 should describe your skills via a series of Monopoly-style cards. And, of course, Monopoly has a mascot: the jovial capitalist Uncle Pennybags. Boyarsky designed his own Pennybags, with a twist: Vault Boy’s glee would be juxtaposed with the horrors of the wasteland, to comic effect.

“For some reason, in my mind, this guy was always happy no matter what was happening to him,” he says. “The more horrific the better.”

Power armour
fallout%204%20power%20armour.png


To kids of the ‘80s, the idea of nuclear holocaust did not feel like a tremendous leap. Nor did power armour for the guys behind Fallout. It seemed to be crying out to them.

They were familiar with Starship Troopers, which got its Hollywood adaptation the same year development on the first Fallout game was finished, and lead designer Chris Taylor was reading a lot of science fiction at the time. He particularly remembers John Steakley’s novel Armor, in which exo-suited soldiers fought three-metre-tall insects.

“That was one of those things where we all just looked at each other and said, ‘Well of course we’re going to have power armour’,” Boyarsky says. “I don’t remember debating it.”

“It was one of those obvious things we had to put in the game,” Taylor adds.

However, the iconic look of Fallout’s power armour - replete with helmet and rebreather - did not come together until Boyarsky was called on to create a close-up for the game’s intro.

“[The original design] didn’t work at all,” he says. “So I totally redid what power armour looked like. But from the very beginning we knew it had to be in there.”

Overseers
fallout%20overseer.png


Now that the Fallout universe is so deeply embedded in the PC gaming psyche, the decisions that led to some of its mainstays can seem outrageously flippant. Overseers, for instance.

“I think we just needed a guy to send you out on your first quest,” Boyarsky says.

“The nefariousness of the vaults came a little later, with Fallout 2,” Taylor points out. “Originally it was that we needed there to be a single contact so we could write one voiceover character. Every area needed a voice actor.”

Deathclaws
fallout%204%20deathclaw.png


Deathclaws are the best-known of the wasteland’s fauna - not least because they are the largest and strongest creatures you tend to come across in a Fallout game. But unlike the Radscorpions, Yao Guai, and rabid mole rats, they have no clear progenitor in our pre-nuclear landscape. Turns out there is a good reason for that. The Fallout team found inspiration for the deathclaw among the office decoration of early Interplay.

“We didn’t have a good monster,” producer and lead programmer Tim Cain recalls. “And I would walk through the lobby, and there was that Tarrasque.”

The Tarrasque is a monster that dates back to first edition D&D. Sure enough, it bears some of the telltale motifs of the Deathclaw: the horns, the spiked spine, and, well, the claws. The Tarrasque itself is based on a dragon-like creature of French legend - so in that sense, at least, Fallout’s most fearsome opponent is rooted in our world.
 

LESS T_T

Arcane
Joined
Oct 5, 2012
Messages
13,582
Codex 2014
This new (joined early this year) marketing director guy Eric Neigher is really active at reddit:
https://www.reddit.com/user/ObsidianEric/submitted/
https://www.reddit.com/user/ObsidianEric/comments/

https://www.reddit.com/r/Fallout/comments/77g4kb/hey_its_the_7yearanniversary_of_fallout_new_vegas/

Hey, it's the 7-year-anniversary of Fallout: New Vegas! From the folks at Obsidian Entertainment, just want to say thanks for playing our game and making this community awesome!

Just remember, kiddos: sometimes life might seem like an 18-karat run of bad luck, but the truth is... the game was rigged from the start.

Looks like he's a regular at r/Fallout.
 

Flou

Arbiter
Joined
Mar 23, 2016
Messages
869
Location
Hellsinki
Yup, he is very active.

"
Right now, Pillars of Eternity II is looking amazing!

We also have a couple secret projects that I have to say I'm pretty stoked about, but I can't talk about those. :-P"

Couple? I wonder did one of the pitches actually move forward..
 

Lahey

Laheyist
Patron
Joined
Jun 10, 2017
Messages
1,467
Grab the Codex by the pussy
I have sinned by posting drama in the company general. This thread is for monocled discussion only and moving that filth to gg was completely justified. Words cannot express the regret. Please accept my repentance in the form of friendly Sawyerism:
 

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