Anthony Davis leaving Obsidian

[Wunderpurps]

I take everything I said about why devs don't post much back. It seems much more likely they stay away for fear of abduction. Sometimes you can love a thing too much.

 

[Anthony Davis]

On that note, some day when I am ready to leave the game industry for good I am going to spill the beans about all of the...experiences... I have had within the game industry. I'm a big believer that you will reap what you sow and there are some companies and people out there who have sowed the wind.

Mind sharing any of the more tame experiences?

Anyway, the fact that you tell us you have tons of dirt to drop pretty much confirms that a lot of the shit we hear about the games industry being a horrible place to work is true even if you don't go into specifics.

The vast majority of my experiences have been straight up awesome. Obsidian was a great place to work, and the majority of the people I worked with were some of the best people I have ever worked with. There is a lot of things going on at anyone time. Feargus and the rest of the owners are some of the hardest working people I have ever met. The owners work hard to keep everyone employed and to keep Obsidian solvent.

I guess maybe I was being a tad immature regarding spilling any beans about anything. See, I believe in my heart of hearts that Obsidian is due for huge success. While there are some who hate us, or think us incompetent, or whatever. I think if everyone knew all of the circumstances regarding every good or bad thing that has happened they would judge us a bit more fairly. I am probably just being wistful.

That said, the game industry has been one of the most challenging and fulfilling jobs I have ever had. I say that as a man who has driven tanks, and worked at Netscape during the height of the browser wars.

 

[Anthony Davis]

Say Anthony, could you shed some light on the upcoming Wheel of Time rpg? How much is Obsidian contributing to it? Is it going to be turn based or real time? Party based or single character? What era do you start out in, during the books or after Tarmon Gaidon?

Oh and how will the channeling system be handled?

I actually know very little about it. Sorry.

 

[Lockkaliber]

So uh what can we do to get Anthony fired from TimeGate and to make sure he doesn't land a game dev job ever again? I'm in the mood for spilled beans.

 

[Anthony Davis]

As for DS3, considering the budget we had, and the schedule we had (yes, I know every game company says this) I am very proud of what we did. I also knew the game would be VERY solid performance and bug wise because it was our own tech.

So, would you name the 800'000 sold as a positive result? Or to be more specific do Square and Obsidian still have a positive relationship? (And on that note Bethesda) Obsidian isn't really known for long-term publisher relationships.

Of course I understand if you can't answer these questions. Be as vague as you want to be if it means "answering" them, of course^^

I know how much was spent developing the game, I don't know how much was spent marketing the game, and I know that the gross income is about 35$ x 820,000. More for PC versions. Plus it will continue to sell for quite some time.

That said, I would call DS3 a large success by every measurement.

I know Bethesda gets a lot of flack around here, but those guys work hard and they know how to make a video game. They've got it down. No one in my opinion does open world exploration games better.

As for Square, I remember that when they came to visit us, Feargus and the owners were giving some Japanese executives a tour of the offices. Outside my office at the time I had a Chrono Trigger poster on the glass facing outwards. The Japanese executives spotted it and thought it was super awesome. I knew right there we were going to have a good relationship with them - and we did.

Obviously this is my point of view from a middle of the stack so to speak. Those at the very top have a very different perspective from those of us in the middle.

 

[Kane]

Say Anthony, could you shed some light on the upcoming Wheel of Time rpg? How much is Obsidian contributing to it? Is it going to be turn based or real time? Party based or single character? What era do you start out in, during the books or after Tarmon Gaidon?

Oh and how will the channeling system be handled?

I actually know very little about it. Sorry.

what do you know about future plans regarding the section 8 IP?

 

[Anthony Davis]

So uh what can we do to get Anthony fired from TimeGate and to make sure he doesn't land a game dev job ever again? I'm in the mood for spilled beans.

Hahaha, read my post up above. I am was being immature and wistful.

I'll repeat a bit of it again. I think Obsidian would be judged a bit differently if it were possible for everyone to know all of the information out there as to why certain things happen and what Obsidian does and does not have control over.

I will always be a fan and a supporter of Obsidian.


As for TimeGate, I am SUPER excited to be working there. I am the HUGEST Kohan fan and I loved Fear, and I love Aliens. It seems like a very sweet working environment too. I definitely would not have left Obsidian for something that I didn't believe in.

 

[Anthony Davis]

Say Anthony, could you shed some light on the upcoming Wheel of Time rpg? How much is Obsidian contributing to it? Is it going to be turn based or real time? Party based or single character? What era do you start out in, during the books or after Tarmon Gaidon?

Oh and how will the channeling system be handled?

I actually know very little about it. Sorry.

what do you know about future plans regarding the section 8 IP?

What I find most exciting about Section 8 and Kohan is that TimeGate owns both of those IPs. To me that is the most exciting part. That said, I would assume they have plans to continue working on it but I don't know anything concrete other than I will be working on Aliens Colonial Marines.

 

[Menckenstein]

What part of development is TimeGate covering again?
You're not making the 3DS version are you?

 

[Kane]

I don't know anything concrete

dang it!

 

[Peter]

Do you know 's phone number? Street address? Anything you can give us on him?

Seriously though, best of luck to you. The Aliens game look kinda lame if I'm completely honest, but all of the other TimeGate stuff seems quite cool.

 

[IronicNeurotic]

By the way is the unannounced project you were working on interesting by codex standards?

 

[Lockkaliber]

So uh what can we do to get Anthony fired from TimeGate and to make sure he doesn't land a game dev job ever again? I'm in the mood for spilled beans.

Hahaha, read my post up above. I am was being immature and wistful.

I'll repeat a bit of it again. I think Obsidian would be judged a bit differently if it were possible for everyone to know all of the information out there as to why certain things happen and what Obsidian does and does not have control over.

I will always be a fan and a supporter of Obsidian.


As for TimeGate, I am SUPER excited to be working there. I am the HUGEST Kohan fan and I loved Fear, and I love Aliens. It seems like a very sweet working environment too. I definitely would not have left Obsidian for something that I didn't believe in.

Hehehe, nice damage control bro. No need to hide anything though, we all know what modern Sega and Lucas Ars are like.

j/k, but I sure hope you enjoy it when Sega decides you have to redo half of Colonial Marines into something more like Kill Bill and then shitcans the whole thing anyway. Actually j/k about that too, nothing to see here, move along.

oh and good luck in Texas.

 

[Sannom]

Choice and Consequence - there are several choices you can make the change the outcome of the story and the characters within it. On a side note, I wish we could have released George Zeit's source book he wrote for the World of Ehb. It was an amazing read.

Did Obsidian 'give' that book to Square Enix? I suppose it's going to serve as a sort of basis for the lore of any game made in that universe... hope Obsidian and Ziets will be able to do a serious RPG in that universe in the future.

And who do we pester so that we can have a copy :D ?

I must say I like some of the consequences in the end-slides, a nice difference between pragmatism and idealism. Although, just like Alpha Protocol, it sorts of annoys me that you can't guess the 'pragmatism' part from playing the game (I'm thinking of the Cyclops choice in Stonebridge). Also, if you can, give kudos to the one who drew the 'Give Jeyne to the Queen' ending, I found the image with their hands very touching for some reason.

 

[Anthony Davis]

Choice and Consequence - there are several choices you can make the change the outcome of the story and the characters within it. On a side note, I wish we could have released George Zeit's source book he wrote for the World of Ehb. It was an amazing read.

Did Obsidian 'give' that book to Square Enix? I suppose it's going to serve as a sort of basis for the lore of any game made in that universe... hope Obsidian and Ziets will be able to do a serious RPG in that universe in the future.

And who do we pester so that we can have a copy :D ?

I must say I like some of the consequences in the end-slides, a nice difference between pragmatism and idealism. Although, just like Alpha Protocol, it sorts of annoys me that you can't guess the 'pragmatism' part from playing the game (I'm thinking of the Cyclops choice in Stonebridge). Also, if you can, give kudos to the one who drew the 'Give Jeyne to the Queen' ending, I found the image with their hands very touching for some reason.

One of our concept artists, Julie, drew those and all of the 'charcoal' type images in the game. I say charcoal because I'm a plebe and don't know the proper art term.

edit: as for George Zeits' Ehb Sourcebook, I guess I would just make the request on the Obsidian forums and keep your fingers crossed.

 

[IronicNeurotic]

Why do you always write "George Zeit?"

Some incompany german joke?

 

[fizzelopeguss]

DS3 had "Slam dunk!" written all over it.

 

[fizzelopeguss]

See, I believe in my heart of hearts that Obsidian is due for huge success.

NV wasn't that? i read it had monstrously high sales figures, bethesda's biggest opening until this weeks skyrim.

And can you give us a very rough platform breakdown (tl;dr how did the pc version sell)

 

[Sannom]

DS3 had "Slam dunk!" written all over it.

Not 'Slam Dunk!', no. It lacks the use of an already established engine and gameplay. Limited scope and ambition, however...

 

[Anthony Davis]

See, I believe in my heart of hearts that Obsidian is due for huge success.

NV wasn't that? i read it had monstrously high sales figures, bethesda's biggest opening until this weeks skyrim.

And can you give us a very rough platform breakdown (tl;dr how did the pc version sell)

FO:NV was a critical success for Obsidian and financial success for Bethesda. They own the rights to the property.

Obsidian was the developer, we were paid to make the game and that was it.

 

[Roguey]

Matt Maclean is a bit of a conundrum wrapped in a beard. He takes pride in being a cranky curmudgeon, but he hides both his heart of gold and his fist of death behind his beard. He is a superior technical designer who is not afraid of numbers.

So why are all his systems (AP and DS3 so far) super-simple, super-guided, and super-restrictive? I don't want to take "publisher demands" for an answer (I look at what Diablo 3's doing and wishing you guys had cribbed even more from it; not only the RPG systems but some of the UI elements, the static-camera-with-levels-specifically-built-for-that-angle, replacement of cinematic dialogues with a mild zoom, the sound effects etc). Because his track record is making me think that New York (he is the lead on that, right?) is going to be yet another "RPG" I might end up enjoying in spite of terribad RPG systems.

 

[shihonage]

FO:NV was a critical success for Obsidian and financial success for Bethesda. They own the rights to the property.

Obsidian was the developer, we were paid to make the game and that was it.

(makes a call to Vilnius about Pete Hines)

 

[SCO]

Did you get to work in the IE games?

Because i'm looking to make a mod now, and am currently raging about the "variables" bgscript has ( SetGlobals ).

What kind of "variable" is one where you can't extract it to use in functions or copy it to another place.

I want to hear the frustration, let it out, all those things you wanted to do but couldn't.

 

[Jaesun]

Did you get to work in the IE games?

Because i'm looking to make a mod now, and am currently raging about the "variables" bgscript has ( SetGlobals ).

What kind of "variable" is one where you can't extract it to use in functions or copy it to another place.

Obsidian didn't develop Biowares engine.

 

[SCO]

But they used it, that's still worse. Imagine yourself wanting to get the value of a stat and, oh, you can't. You have to use a state machine or iterations. And there is no iteration. And the state machines the engine has are
1) dialog, needs input by the user to progress so constantly stopping stopping stopping, clearly unsuitable for calculations.
2) a nasty nasty hack with AI scripts and using SetAIScript to goto another, that's far too slow because that function waits for the end of the round anyway.

Or imagine you want to use a global to set something in a AI script block - and you can't because there are no free variables in bgscript. Only thing you can do with a global is to compare it to a constant.

 

[Jaesun]

What does any of this have to do with Obsidian or Anthony?

 

[SCO]

What does any of this have to do with Obsidian or Anthony?

Go to hell.
It's a question about the limitations of their middleware.