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Obsidian General Discussion Thread

The Wall

Dumbfuck!
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I am impressed by the number of articles about Obsidian, released today. Something is happening?
Why yes, haven't you heared? Deadfire sailed past Elex and left it 12 places behind! It's curently on 10th page of Steam's top sellers and very high 227th place overall!

If it manages to outmaneurver Euro Truck Simulator 2 - Italia and Darkest Dungeon: Crimson Court it will enter waters at page 8 (top 200) where bigger fishes like Monster Prom and Slime Rancher can be found, arrr!

I have a credible source inside Obsidian that says they're working on a co-op RPG based around community generated content. The modding tools planned in upcoming patches for Deadfire are supposed to be a testing ground.
Oh, and it seems Obsidian will be bought by Zenimax and it's new job will be to maintain Fallout 76 after it's release. And people said Bethesda will never let Obsidian touch Fallout, heh!
 

TT1

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Make the Codex Great Again! Grab the Codex by the pussy Insert Title Here RPG Wokedex Strap Yourselves In Codex Year of the Donut A Beautifully Desolate Campaign Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Pathfinder: Kingmaker Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag. My team has the sexiest and deadliest waifus you can recruit.
I am impressed by the number of articles about Obsidian, released today. Something is happening?
Why yes, haven't you heared? Deadfire sailed past Elex and left it 12 places behind! It's curently on 10th page of Steam's top sellers and very high 227th place overall!

If it manages to outmaneurver Euro Truck Simulator 2 - Italia and Darkest Dungeon: Crimson Court it will enter waters at page 8 (top 200) where bigger fishes like Monster Prom and Slime Rancher can be found, arrr!

Ok, buddy, now go back to the circus
 

The Wall

Dumbfuck!
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I am impressed by the number of articles about Obsidian, released today. Something is happening?
Why yes, haven't you heared? Deadfire sailed past Elex and left it 12 places behind! It's curently on 10th page of Steam's top sellers and very high 227th place overall!

If it manages to outmaneurver Euro Truck Simulator 2 - Italia and Darkest Dungeon: Crimson Court it will enter waters at page 8 (top 200) where bigger fishes like Monster Prom and Slime Rancher can be found, arrr!

Ok, buddy, now go back to the circus

MCA and I escaped one and joined one you too belong to. RPG Circus - best circus in the world.

Now don't be a sad clown, turn that frown upside down! Don't worry now, Feargus will show you how:

hkRhDef.jpg
 

Infinitron

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Hell yeah:





http://www.ign.com/articles/2018/06...tails-on-canceled-aliens-rpg-a-ign-unfiltered

PILLARS OF ETERNITY DIRECTOR GIVES DETAILS ON CANCELED ALIENS RPG – IGN UNFILTERED
“I think a lot of people couldn’t even comprehend it, which seems crazy to me,” says project director Josh Sawyer.

In early 2009, Sega announced that it was pulling the plug on a role-playing game based on Ridley Scott’s Aliens franchise. The game was being helmed by Fallout: New Vegas and Pillars of Eternity developer Obsidian Entertainment, which laid off more than 20 employees shortly after the cancellation. In an exclusive interview for IGN Unfiltered, Obsidian mainstay Josh Sawyer (director on Pillars of Eternity II: Deadfire and Fallout: New Vegas) has shared new details regarding the game and the reasons for its demise.

Pre-alpha footage of the game leaked back in early 2013, featuring a four-man squad searching through a dilapidated facility before being swarmed by the titular aliens. There’s also a bit of footage of the character creation menu. A 2010 report by Joystiq quotes Obsidian studio head Feargus Urquhart as saying “Oh, if you had come in and played any of the last builds we were working on, you would have said it was a finished game.”

“It did not play like a finished game,” says Sawyer, who came on as a lead designer for the game before eventually moving to project director. “There were a lot of problems with area development. We had some animation problems we were working through. There was a lot of cool stuff in it, but ultimately we weren’t building our areas at a fast enough pace and there were just some lingering problems.”

According to Sawyer, the footage that leaked back in 2013 was from a build of the game that was “one or two” milestones prior to the build Obsidian had when the game was canceled, something that Sawyer says saddened him.

“It was too little, too late honestly,” Sawyer says. “Even though I was really disappointed it got canceled, I get why it was canceled. I wasn’t like, ‘Whoa, where did this come from?’”

Part of the struggle in getting an Aliens role-playing game off the ground also included marketing the idea to players or executives who might not have thought the franchise would lend itself well to a more open-ended experience of an RPG rather than another genre.

“When it was announced that we were working on an Aliens role-playing game, I think a lot of people couldn’t even comprehend it, which seems crazy to me,” Sawyer says. “I can’t remember when we started working on it relative to Mass Effect, but sci-fi games as RPGs were not necessarily a super big thing outside of Mass Effect.”

For Sawyer, part of the Aliens franchise’s draw was its focus on the humans struggling to survive an encounter with the deadly xenomorph creatures, such as the original Nostromo crew of Alien or the ragtag space marines of the Aliens film.

“It’s about more than just Ripley. It’s about Ripley in the midst of a group of people and her emerging as this de facto leader, this person who has to help pull them through,” Sawyer says. “It’s about how people either fall apart or they rise up. Those are beautiful character arcs. For me, in a role-playing game, those are the great key relationships you can build. That’s what I wanted to emphasize in the Aliens game we were making.”

According to Sawyer, Obsidian’s hierarchy didn’t include project directors at the time, instead vying for discipline leads and one executive producer. Sawyer moved into a director role at the tail end of the project after it was clear that the team needed a person in charge of enforcing more difficult decisions. This would hopefully halt the indecision between sections of the team plaguing development.

“Obviously no one likes being overruled, but if our goal is to have a vision and direction to go in, [directors are] something we need,” Sawyer says.

For more details on the canceled Alien role-playing game, as well as a look behind the development of Fallout: New Vegas and future plans for Pillars of Eternity, make sure to check out the full episode of IGN Unfiltered tomorrow.
 

LESS T_T

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Codex 2014
An article on the history of Obsidian: https://techraptor.net/content/obsidian-entertainment-15th-anniversary-history

It's mostly things collected from interviews, articles, and a book, but they've got a direct quote from George Ziets on Mask of the Betrayer:

Mask of the Betrayer was a very unusual situation. Financial expectations were low, and it had a fairly low budget. As a result, the project flew under most people’s radar, which meant little or no involvement from publishers or executives. (One notable exception was Chris Avellone, who was very supportive of what we were doing and ended up writing two of our companions.) It felt like [producer] Kevin [Saunders] and I were able to do whatever we wanted, as long as we stayed under budget. I didn’t realize at the time how rare that was, and although my design for the narrative was ambitious, and it led me to put in a lot of very long hours, taking advantage of that opportunity was one of the best decisions I’ve ever made. I’m proud of what we accomplished.
 

DalekFlay

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One of the main problems with Alien games is they try and emulate the first two movies completely rather than telling a new story in that world, which would work ten times better. All the great Star Wars games tell a new story in that world, with their own small differences.
 

Abu Antar

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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
Let's say Josh leaves. Where do you guys think that he'd end up? Larian? I'm not feeling that partnership. Bigger studio?
 

Alienman

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Codex 2016 - The Age of Grimoire Make the Codex Great Again! Grab the Codex by the pussy Codex Year of the Donut Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
One of the main problems with Alien games is they try and emulate the first two movies completely rather than telling a new story in that world, which would work ten times better. All the great Star Wars games tell a new story in that world, with their own small differences.

They should make a game or a movie about about this story:



It would have been an incredible horror adventure.
 

Bester

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Let's say Josh leaves. Where do you guys think that he'd end up? Larian? I'm not feeling that partnership. Bigger studio?
He's an ambitious guy, and he's likely very tired of RPGs that at this point he probably considers "shit for nerds". He changed his look completely from a nerd to a hipster faggot with tattoos all over his arms. His tastes probably changed as well. He'll try to get into Blizzard or smth similar.
 

Quillon

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He might go to one of the studios in europe since he likes there and all the history within :P Tho its more likely he'd go indie for his FYSMD if he ever leaves, but its most likely he'd stay and die at Obs HQ in the year 2055.
 
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Kyl Von Kull

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Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
Let's say Josh leaves. Where do you guys think that he'd end up? Larian? I'm not feeling that partnership. Bigger studio?
He's an ambitious guy, and he's likely very tired of RPGs that at this point he probably considers "shit for nerds". He changed his look completely from a nerd to a hipster faggot with tattoos all over his arms. His tastes probably changed as well. He'll try to get into Blizzard or smth similar.

Nah, Sawyer ain’t goin’ nowhere. We know Obsidian has been paying him royalties for POE. He probably will get Deadfire royalties, too, although those might take a while to come through given its tepid reception.

Given what we know about Feargus, what are the odds Josh would get to keep collecting those POE royalty checks if he leaves? My guess is slim to none. Obviously it depends on what his cut looks like, but while I doubt he’d have much trouble getting hired somewhere else, Sawyer sounds like the only Obsidian employee who actually has a sweet deal. He gets to be design director without directing any games for the near future. We know he’s not really on the hook for The Outer Worlds. So what are thy even paying him for right now? The guy’s basically on vacation. Maybe Feargus has him coming up with pitches—easy, low intensity work.

From everything he’s said lately, Josh wants to chill the fuck out for a while. I bet he stays on for at least another year, minimum.
 

TT1

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Make the Codex Great Again! Grab the Codex by the pussy Insert Title Here RPG Wokedex Strap Yourselves In Codex Year of the Donut A Beautifully Desolate Campaign Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Pathfinder: Kingmaker Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag. My team has the sexiest and deadliest waifus you can recruit.
Let's say Josh leaves. Where do you guys think that he'd end up? Larian? I'm not feeling that partnership. Bigger studio?
He's an ambitious guy, and he's likely very tired of RPGs that at this point he probably considers "shit for nerds". He changed his look completely from a nerd to a hipster faggot with tattoos all over his arms. His tastes probably changed as well. He'll try to get into Blizzard or smth similar.

Nah, Sawyer ain’t goin’ nowhere. We know Obsidian has been paying him royalties for POE. He probably will get Deadfire royalties, too, although those might take a while to come through given its tepid reception.

Thats interesting. Can someone with the knoeledge of the industry give me the details how this works?

I am a Systems/ Business Analyst and I was a developer for more than 10 years, working in different companies, but I never got any royalties. So, this is new for me.

Another thing strange to me is when Josh said that he didnt want to be a director for a while, after Deadfire. If I say something like that to my boss he will say "well, we need you to be a director, this is your job. If you dont want, you can quit". So, how this "I dont want to" works, in the game industry? People have this freedom to do that, or Josh have a privileged position?
 

Abu Antar

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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
He supervises all games at the company, afaik. He probably has things to do.
 

Bester

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Let's say Josh leaves. Where do you guys think that he'd end up? Larian? I'm not feeling that partnership. Bigger studio?
He's an ambitious guy, and he's likely very tired of RPGs that at this point he probably considers "shit for nerds". He changed his look completely from a nerd to a hipster faggot with tattoos all over his arms. His tastes probably changed as well. He'll try to get into Blizzard or smth similar.

Nah, Sawyer ain’t goin’ nowhere. We know Obsidian has been paying him royalties for POE. He probably will get Deadfire royalties, too, although those might take a while to come through given its tepid reception.

Thats interesting. Can someone with the knoeledge of the industry give me the details how this works?

I am a Systems/ Business Analyst and I was a developer for more than 10 years, working in different companies, but I never got any royalties. So, this is new for me.

Another thing strange to me is when Josh said that he didnt want to be a director for a while, after Deadfire. If I say something like that to my boss he will say "well, we need you to be a director, this is your job. If you dont want, you can quit". So, how this "I dont want to" works, in the game industry? People have this freedom to do that, or Josh have a privileged position?
Never heard of simple employees getting points on a game, but hey it's obshitian, they make up shit as they go.
They probably wanted to make Josh a partner, because they considered him a key employee, but at the same time didn't want him to decide anything after what happened with Chris Avellone, so they just gave him points on this game, and that's how it came to be.

You give a guy points on a game when you absolutely don't want to lose him. Like if he leaves, the project is _fucked_. So to avoid that, you promise him a huge reward if he sees things through. It's also a managerial fuck-up if you have irreplaceable employees in the first place.

He's probably busy with poe's addons right now, but after that he may just be another cogwheel in a future title, like a systems designer, instead of a project director. If that's what he wants. I understand he may feel burned out right now. But it may pass in a few months.

When a company works on multiple titles and you have your boss's ear, you may hop between projects and roles freely.
 

Quillon

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What's up with the idiotic questions? Dude has work there for more than 10 years, trusted for direction many times, even "saved" the company that one time, became public face of it etc. Yeah how unusual it is that Upper Management does not treat him as a random employee, ffs.
 
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TT1

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Make the Codex Great Again! Grab the Codex by the pussy Insert Title Here RPG Wokedex Strap Yourselves In Codex Year of the Donut A Beautifully Desolate Campaign Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Pathfinder: Kingmaker Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag. My team has the sexiest and deadliest waifus you can recruit.
What's up with the idiotic questions? Dude has work there for more than 10 years, trusted for direction many times, even "saved" the company that one time, became public face of it etc. Yeah how unusual it is that Upper Management does not treat him as a random employee, ffs.

Calm down, girl, I am not trying to steal your man.
 
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Sentinel

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Orma, I like to read these bits, but you shouldn't be leaking this unless you have permission from Sawyer.
Please reconsider.

Who's this dev you speak of by the way?
 
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Quillon

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Wher iz diz liqs from?
 

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