Obsidian General Discussion Thread

[Sensuki]

Oh the L1, L2, L3 caches?

Yeah they didn't teach us anything about working with those at my uni, unfortunately.

 

[Name]

I have no idea what your discussion stems from, but it seems to me that players run their games on all kinds of machines and it's really hard to optimize on such level.

 

[agris]

they're talking about fundamental cpu architecture.. this is as common-demoniator as it gets.

 

[Name]

they're talking about fundamental cpu architecture.. this is as common-demoniator as it gets.

Well I recall that different architecture has different levels and sizes of caches. Don't know what kinds Obsidian need to deal with. I don't even know why Obsidian has to deal with them : (

 

[Jaesun]

Obsidian ‏@Obsidian 1m1 minute ago
#Southpark #TheStickOfTruth won game of the year at chud! http://tinyurl.com/k6urgq9

 

[Duraframe300]

MattMaclean is also working as a designer on an unnaounced project. Might be Brian Heins's.

 

[LESS T_T]

The Big Interview: Chris Avellone on how to write an RPG

http://www.pcgamesn.com/pillars-of-eternity/the-big-interview-chris-avellone-on-how-to-write-an-rpg

Spoiler: Not so big...

 

[joelofdeath]

My takeaway points:

As it happens, Avellone is currently the creative lead on a new project. The precise makeup of his workday changes from month to month, but lately he’s designed lore and background material for a new fantasy world - conceiving environments and coming up with companions.

And:

“I’m not writing for a publisher right now,” he thought. “So I can write about subjects we’re normally not allowed to. What’s interesting about the world of Eternity that I think these two companions could have something to say about?”

In the end, Avellone went too far even for his colleagues at Obsidian - those characters won’t appear in the game as he originally intended.

Apologies if that's old news.

 

[Drax]

What a weird interview...
It's flow sucks.

 

[Duraframe300]

 

[Infinitron]

MCA interview by Logic Artists' Jonas: http://www.xp4t.com/interview-with-the-devs-chris-avellone/

 

[Athelas]

At a specific level, in Eternity, the original premise of the companions I wrote (Durance and the Grieving Mother) was unpeeling the layers and discovering what they were at the core – unpeeling these layers involved slipping stealthily into their unconscious, a dungeon made out of their memories. There, the player could go through an adventure game-like series of interactions, exploring their memories using psychological items important to both your character and to them as emotional keys to thread your way through the memories – but carefully, without revealing your presence. The memory dungeon was to uncover their shared history, how it impacted you, and the core of who they were as people.

And their core was pretty unpleasant. Both of them were very bad, very weak people, committing not only violations on each other, but on the player as well. When faced with the discovery that your allies, even if they fiercely support you and fight for a larger cause, have some pretty horrid faults, what do you do? Do you pass sentence? Do you forgive? Do you assist them to reach an understanding? And what I found more interesting with the spiritual physics in the Eternity world is that a death sentence isn’t a sentence – killing someone actually sets a soul free to move on to the next generation. So if you intend to punish someone in a world like that, either out of revenge or to correct their behavior, how do you do it when execution is not an answer?

The elements above got stripped out of the companions in the end, so I’m happy to share it here (and I may re-examine it in the future). Overall, I thought they raised interesting questions for the player to chew on, and it was interesting to explore those themes, as most game narratives and franchises wouldn’t allow for such examinations – still, Eternity was intended to be a more personal project for Obsidian where we can stretch our narrative legs more, both in structure and themes.

Why was this cut again?

I fanboy over (...) David Gaider

eww

 

[Sensuki]

Was just about to post that (about the Eternity bit).

I can understand cutting the mental dungeon, but hopefully Durance and GM are both horrid people in game

 

[Jaedar]

MCA interview by Logic Artists' Jonas: http://www.xp4t.com/interview-with-the-devs-chris-avellone/

Devs interviewing devs. What has the world come to?

 

[Bleed the Man]

MCA interview by Logic Artists' Jonas: http://www.xp4t.com/interview-with-the-devs-chris-avellone/

 

[undecaf]

MCA interview by Logic Artists' Jonas: http://www.xp4t.com/interview-with-the-devs-chris-avellone/

Devs interviewing devs. What has the world come to?

At least he isn't interviewing himself... yet.

 

[Infinitron]

MCA interview by Logic Artists' Jonas: http://www.xp4t.com/interview-with-the-devs-chris-avellone/

Devs interviewing devs. What has the world come to?

At least he isn't interviewing himself... yet.

http://www.rpgcodex.net/content.php?id=154

(well, sort of)

 

[veevoir]

I fanboy over Mary DeMarle, Susan O’Connor, Richard Dansky, Stever Jaros, and David Gaider

That's..

 

[Spockrock]

..been known for a while. MCA can have guilty pleasures too

 

[Ninjerk]

I fanboy over Mary DeMarle, Susan O’Connor, Richard Dansky, Stever Jaros, and David Gaider

That's..

I wonder how much of Human Revolution's narrative absolutely falling apart DeMarle is actually responsible for?

 

[Infinitron]

I wonder how much of Human Revolution's narrative absolutely falling apart DeMarle is actually responsible for?

The second half of the game screams "CUT CONTENT", so I would be wary of pointing fingers

 

[Duraframe300]

I really like Mary DeMarle

Big Myst fan

 

[Gozma]

From the interviews/Director's Cut shit DeMarle and the French Canadian lead guy sound like the reasonable people that kept the game stapled together instead of collapsing because of cuts and the artist guy sounds like a complete flake (he was the kind of dude that made that shit with the skinless boss surrounded by posing mannequins)

 

[Azarkon]

At a specific level, in Eternity, the original premise of the companions I wrote (Durance and the Grieving Mother) was unpeeling the layers and discovering what they were at the core – unpeeling these layers involved slipping stealthily into their unconscious, a dungeon made out of their memories. There, the player could go through an adventure game-like series of interactions, exploring their memories using psychological items important to both your character and to them as emotional keys to thread your way through the memories – but carefully, without revealing your presence. The memory dungeon was to uncover their shared history, how it impacted you, and the core of who they were as people.

And their core was pretty unpleasant. Both of them were very bad, very weak people, committing not only violations on each other, but on the player as well. When faced with the discovery that your allies, even if they fiercely support you and fight for a larger cause, have some pretty horrid faults, what do you do? Do you pass sentence? Do you forgive? Do you assist them to reach an understanding? And what I found more interesting with the spiritual physics in the Eternity world is that a death sentence isn’t a sentence – killing someone actually sets a soul free to move on to the next generation. So if you intend to punish someone in a world like that, either out of revenge or to correct their behavior, how do you do it when execution is not an answer?

The elements above got stripped out of the companions in the end, so I’m happy to share it here (and I may re-examine it in the future). Overall, I thought they raised interesting questions for the player to chew on, and it was interesting to explore those themes, as most game narratives and franchises wouldn’t allow for such examinations – still, Eternity was intended to be a more personal project for Obsidian where we can stretch our narrative legs more, both in structure and themes.

Why was this cut again?

I fanboy over (...) David Gaider

eww

Too grimdark for Sawyer?


Obviously who the lead designer is and what the company dynamics are greatly affect/restrict writers' output. When MCA was given full creative control, we got PST. When he had to work within the constraints of an overall goal, we got Alpha Protocol. Where PE stands is not yet known but I hope it's towards the former rather than the latter. It's been too long.

 

[tuluse]

Obviously who the lead designer is and what the company dynamics are greatly affect/restrict writers' output. When MCA was given full creative control, we got PST. When he had to work within the constraints of an overall goal, we got Alpha Protocol.

What? He took it upon himself to re-write Alpha Protocol and said the publisher never had any problems with the story.