Preview A Wight By Any Other Name....

[Shannow]

(since the name Feargus is an obvious Scottish abomination)

 

[Hobo Elf]

Every child knows that an abomination is a scottish creature created when a Feargus possesses a man.

 

[Wyrmlord]

(since the name Feargus is an obvious Scottish abomination)

Would you name your son Feargus? Do you think it is a remotely good name?

There is only one meaning attached to name Feargus:

It is a name meant to be erased.

If such a name is not a horrible punishment to inflict on a man, what is? Seriously - Feargus Urquahart?

 

[Rosh]

Just what the fuck are 'SLAM DUNKS!'?

Feargus, long ago on the Terra-Arcanum forums, decided that he would explain a bit of his design philosophy. He described titles that had a full development phase put behind them, and then titles where an abbreviated development time and abbreviated content could be shipped out and sold for full price. A "SLAM DUNK!", in his words.

Yeah, he got a little too complacent on being smug around fan sites with his stupid hype, and that resulted in SLAM DUNK! Which the chickenshit decided to delete later as it spread beyond T-A. It was after that, for RPGCodex and other sites, we started quoting on a regular basis.

Oh, but SLAM DUNK! is preserved in other ways, when it was his new phrase of the day.

That brings us to June of 2001. We then tried to ramp up TORN, because it was obviously in trouble and pretty much everyone that wasn't working on the new game went to work on that project. Then with Interplay's financial problems, we layed some people off and cancelled TORN. So that I could retain as much of Black Isle as I could, I had to come up with a project that could be finished relatively quickly and was a slam dunk with very little to no risk of it getting done on time. That project is the Monroe project which we are announcing within the week.

Canceling "everything Fallout fans have been waiting on since Fallout 2" doesn't sound like a wise business move, unless TORN was really that much of an uninspired Return to Descent to Undermountain. If Feargus actually had management skills, then he might have been able to finish Fallout 3 a number of times already given his repeated aborted attempts on other titles.

Interplay's own Black Isle Studios worked on a sequel called Stonekeep 2: Godmaker for five years before cancelling it in 2001.
According to lead designer David Maldonado, [TORN] had been in development for "about fourteen months" before its announcement. (About 18 months total.)
First, second, and repeated failures in starting up Fallout 3.

Then count in the recent 2+ (more likely 3+) years on Aliens RPG, and you have to wonder which developer can soak publisher money better while sitting on their asses pretending to develop by throwing paper between offices - Bethesda or Obsidian?

How this sack of shit has stayed in the industry, much less keeps up his mismanagement, nobody really knows.

Hell, I remember when Briosafreak had anger:

You know i can understand his hate for Fallout fans since we know how full of bullshit he is (slam dunk, lionheart combat, TORN beeing the game all Fallout fans would want, the Fallout2 bugs, unfinished quests and design chaos mess, etc) but putting us on the same level as Interplay, man that`s low, really low. So Fergus do please go outside and eat shit, don`t forget about the ketchup.

Speaking of TORN again...

Look at BIS/Obsidian's aborted attempt at Dragon Age...I mean, TORN.

The licensed LithTech engine promised to deliver some impressive character graphics and spell effects, but the development team ultimately found the difficulties inherent in creating a detailed 3D environment more formidable than they initially expected.

This, while Feargus was verbally masturbating 3d all over the Terra-Arcanum forums, and despite the experienced telling him that 3d wasn't as simple as he believed. But Feargus went and insisted on it, without making sure anyone had a decent background at 3d development first. Just but one of his many mismanagement decisions.

Let's also not forget:

I'm just pissed Feargus Imatwat said that TORN was what Fallout fans have been waiting for since Fallout 2. Then they go and talk about how hack and slash is fun, so that's the focus of the game.

I seriously fear for Fallout 3.

...

As for loving Feargus because he gave us Fallout 2? Fuck that. Feargus also finalized the patch for Fallout 2 leaving a plethora of bugs and scripting errors in the game. The obvious example, you'll never see a happy ending for both Gecko and Vault City, or Broken Hills, or Vault 13.. GO QUALITY!

How about that utility that converted the old Fallout 2 save games to 1.02D that Feargus said was "Done, but needed some interface polishing"? Well, that turned out to be a big fat lie, didn't it?

I trust Feargus about as far as I can toss the fat bastard.

Yeah, Obsidian business as usual. Fallout: New Vegas was everything Feargus Urquhart was waiting for since he scrubbed his brainshit on the Terra-Arcanum forums. Now he gets to make another SLAM DUNK! in Obsidian fashion. Any questions?

 

[BearBomber]

Yeah, Obsidian business as usual. Fallout: New Vegas was everything Feargus Urquhart was waiting for since he scrubbed his brainshit on the Terra-Arcanum forums. Now he gets to make another SLAM DUNK! in Obsidian fashion. Any questions?

[Inteligence]So slam Dunk is something like this you say?

 

[Rosh]

Haha, only for the intelligent ones and the ones Feargus has been lying to for well over a decade. Even after a while, the jaded just shrug at Feargus and Co.'s hype and wait for any decent quality work to be canceled.

The cattle in the Obsidian audience follow something more like this.

 

[DraQ]

:evil:

*glare*

</structural_programmer>

Sorry, had to throw in an old BASIC joke in there somewhere, because the cycle seems to be getting that old. Yes, it is meant to be an infinite loop, because so far it's been a never-ending cycle. :D

:D I laughed. Does that mean I'm that much of a sad person?

 

[Wyrmlord]

I suddenly get this feeling that Obsidian is a massive fraud of a developer, that just happens to have a few select intelligent people like Zeits and Davis, but otherwise is just based on shipping out shells of projects in enough time and enough hype.

Hell, I had only some reserved praise for it as a developer, but by gods, they are just a big moneysink. I didn't know these things, because I was not following BIS/Obsidian back in those days at all.

 

[Rosh]

:D I laughed. Does that mean I'm that much of a sad person?

Nah. :D

I suddenly get this feeling that Obsidian is a massive fraud of a developer, that just happens to have a few select intelligent people like Zeits and Davis, but otherwise is just based on shipping out shells of projects in enough time and enough hype.

I wouldn't call them a developer anymore. An over-glorified modding group, perhaps, but they haven't released a decent full title since before they were known as <s>Obsidian</s> BioWare Jr. Their finished work is essentially whatever scraps BioWare throws in their direction.

Hell, I had only some reserved praise for it as a developer, but by gods, they are just a big moneysink. I didn't know these things, because I was not following BIS/Obsidian back in those days at all.

Yeah, if you count all the years up, they have at least a decade of wasted manpower and development costs for entire teams.

Not even Romero can claim that level of suck. Hell, no other developer I'm aware of has come close.

 

[BearBomber]

[Inteligence]So now only people manufacturing RPGs are Bethesda which Codex hates, Biowre which Codex hates, Obsidian which part of Codex hates and some indie developers which are going to release their games in uncertain future. Not a good time for Codex.

 

[Darth Roxor]

[Inteligence]So now only people manufacturing RPGs are Bethesda which Codex hates, Biowre which Codex hates, Obsidian which part of Codex hates and some indie developers which are going to release their games in uncertain future. Not a good time for Codex.

And Piranha Bytes (which part of the Codex hates, although a smaller one than the aforementioned devs, I believe)

 

[Rosh]

[Inteligence]So now only people manufacturing RPGs are Bethesda which Codex hates, Biowre which Codex hates, Obsidian which part of Codex hates and some indie developers which are going to release their games in uncertain future. Not a good time for Codex.

It is mainly due to the state of the industry. Too many developers sniffing each others' asses and offering different flavors of the same shit, that it has in turn made the market dissatisfied. And that is why the game industry is in a slump when it's the hot time of the year for game sales (summer vacation for the kiddies).

February took a sales hit. A 17% drop in March. 23% in May. June isn't looking much better. Game developers and publishers are either closing house or being bought out, even to the point of the proudly independent are kissing ZeniMax and Bethesda's ass with a shit-eating grin.

This is not a good time for the industry.

 

[BearBomber]

[Inteligence]So now only people manufacturing RPGs are Bethesda which Codex hates, Biowre which Codex hates, Obsidian which part of Codex hates and some indie developers which are going to release their games in uncertain future. Not a good time for Codex.

It is mainly due to the state of the industry. Too many developers sniffing each others' asses and offering different flavors of the same shit, that it has in turn made the market dissatisfied. And that is why the game industry is in a slump when it's the hot time of the year for game sales (summer vacation for the kiddies).

February took a sales hit. A 17% drop in March. 23% in May. June isn't looking much better. Game developers and publishers are either closing house or being bought out, even to the point of the proudly independent are kissing ZeniMax and Bethesda's ass with a shit-eating grin.

This is not a good time for the industry.

>>>If that trend will continue I think that FPS and RTS arenext gengres to dissappear from mainstream after turn-based RPGs and tactic games. Casual games and action adventures will get even more budget because publishers will be afraid of investing in anything non-mainstream. The main problem of the industry is that people with ideas don't have budget while people with budget don't have ideas. This is not a good time for players.

 

[Rosh]

>>>If that trend will continue I think that FPS and RTS arenext gengres to dissappear from mainstream after turn-based RPGs and tactic games. Casual games and action adventures will get even more budget because publishers will be afraid of investing in anything non-mainstream. The main problem of the industry is that people with ideas don't have budget while people with budget don't have ideas. This is not a good time for players.

Honestly, it hasn't been a good time for players since publishers stopped making entire genres because their over-hyped attempts at "modernization" of the genre were met with failure, often because they worked too much on cramming in some cloned trend while neglecting what made the game fun in the first place.

Just like the core Adventure genre, which is now seeing a resurgence with Telltale Games and a few other developers (Penumbra is another I can think of immediately).

 

[mondblut]

I think you just stumbled upon the golden chalice. Seeing the popularity of elves and vampires among women (apart from the ones... one on the codex) I can see dollar signs in my eyes. I am gonna write a romantic story about a emo vampiric elf and a girl that can't find her place in the world.

This has been done. First Ravenloft novel, "Vampire of the Mists". Curiously, author's names was Christie Golden. Fits your specifications exactly, except a vampiric dwarf who was moved to second novel, and was a lycanthrope dwarf instead.

I am all for generic fantasy though. All those postapocalyptic cybersteampunk space operas sicken me. Give me elves and dragons any day over this "lookatme lookatme i'm so different!!!11" wannabe crap.

 

[Wyrmlord]

I am all for generic fantasy though. All those postapocalyptic cybersteampunk space operas sicken me. Give me elves and dragons any day over this "lookatme lookatme i'm so different!!!11" wannabe crap.

Ingermanlandian heritage? :D

 

[FeelTheRads]

I am all for generic fantasy though. All those postapocalyptic cybersteampunk space operas sicken me. Give me elves and dragons any day over this "lookatme lookatme i'm so different!!!11" wannabe crap.

So your tastes are dull in settings too. At least you are consistent.

 

[mondblut]

lookatme lookatme i'm so different too!!!11

 

[Clockwork Knight]

I am all for generic fantasy though. All those postapocalyptic cybersteampunk space operas sicken me. Give me elves and dragons any day over this "lookatme lookatme i'm so different!!!11" wannabe crap.

Weren't elves and dragons different wannabe crap once?

 

[mondblut]

Being the first fiction ever created, not really.

 

[Rosh]

Being the first fiction ever created, not really.

God would strike you down for saying that, if he existed.

 

[Naked Ninja]

It is mainly due to the state of the industry. Too many developers sniffing each others' asses and offering different flavors of the same shit, that it has in turn made the market dissatisfied. And that is why the game industry is in a slump when it's the hot time of the year for game sales (summer vacation for the kiddies).

February took a sales hit. A 17% drop in March. 23% in May. June isn't looking much better. Game developers and publishers are either closing house or being bought out, even to the point of the proudly independent are kissing ZeniMax and Bethesda's ass with a shit-eating grin.

So the reason sales are down is because, despite all evidence to the contrary, people are dissatisfied with the same shit each year, as opposed to, say, the global economic crisis that is hitting almost every market quite hard?


6 moves ahead in chess eh?

 

[Rosh]

So the reason sales are down is because, despite all evidence to the contrary, people are dissatisfied with the same shit each year, as opposed to, say, the global economic crisis that is hitting almost every market quite hard?

There is that as well, but then that would also have to ignore that sales figures in the last few years have been global while they used to be counted more domestically. If you go by the prospective market ratios, the industry is doing about 1/5th as well for 1M global sales than if it were to have 1M in domestic sales. You have to count in the marketing and legal for all of those locations as further overhead cost.

I've already pointed this out long ago, along with how some series/game styles will have devoted followers, while other genres have a more discriminating following. Usually.

 

[FeelTheRads]

I'm a tasteless person for whom everything that deviates from my own narrow view of what things should be is wanna-be art and of course all art sucks because all artists are gay and emo lol!! I wanna fight dragunz sitting on a pile of gold!!!

 

[BearBomber]

Being the first fiction ever created, not really.

But non-fiction came before fantasy. So they are also ''Look at me i'm different crap". Different from reality. Besides, criticising fantasy for being different is really dumb. It's a fiction, not a shovel.