Why people give Obsidian a little to much credit (IMO)

[Arakasi]

I think that people care less about all the issues you mentioned, and care more about the brilliant characters, stories and worlds they create.
At least, that's where my priorities lie.

 

[Shocksplicer]

They're great. KOTOR 2 and NWN 2 were both better than their predecessors, I really liked Alpha Protocol, and New Vegas was a great game only marred by the bugs.
They consistently have better writing than just about any other developer out there too.

 

[Savagezion]

People often bring up in arguments how Obsidian managed to make the second game in many series better than the first, and make the story better and improve gameplay mechanics.

Well...yeah, they had an extremely solid foundation to do a little bit of building on.

Keep in mind that this is something big publishers have a problem accomplishing. The beloved Bioware scrapped the Mako for scanning when all it needed was a few tweaks. There are a lot of examples where beloved devs don't improve on a solid foundation, they scrap it instead. This is one of the cool things about Obsidian; they can see potential in spite of the risks.

But even with that advantage they STILL manage to release a game with as horrible bugs as New Vegas (And don't give me that "Bethesda was QA" crap, Obsidian was the one who looked at the finished product and said to Bethesda "Yes, ship it")

Wrong. Because Bethesda was funding the project, Bethesda decided when the game would be shipped. NV was Bethesdas call. Just like Alpha Protocol was Sega's call. Obsidian refuses to go be owned by a publisher so for every game they want to make, they need a backer. The problem with that is that backer is usually a publisher who not only wrestles for creative control but also tends to push Obsidian back on the QA roster in favor of more favored titles like say Bethesda pushing NV back for Rage and Brink and possibly even early stages of Skyrim.

The thing to keep in mind with Obsidian is they are contract developers. No publisher wants to give them money to make a new IP unless they hand over the rights to the IP. (Which is what happened with AP and look what happened. Sega believes that there is no market appeal for a modern spy genre RPG when it's easy to see those sales numbers would have been extremely higher if the game was more polished - which would have cost Sega's more money therefore more risk that they weren't willing to spend.) Kickstarter may help I think as the game is now being backed by a more patient community. All Obsidian needs to do is make this new RPG as good as what they usually make, polish it up, support modding and they can probably begin self publishing and give a big middle finger to the publishers that refused to back their potential.

If you are unable to see the potential within their works, then I guess wait around. Many of us can though. It won't be long before you can see for yourself what a lot of us clamor on about though.

 

[The Madman]

You (and I) might be in luck. It's not using the same engine, but it's being billed as a tactical turn based rpg in the mold of games like ToEE and the old D&D Gold Box games.

There's a huge difference between ToEE and the old Gold Box games, kinda strange to say it's trying to combine those two types of rpg in particular. But nitpicking aside that looks genuinely awesome, thank you for mentioning it. I'm surprised I hadn't heard of it before this, it's not exactly like there are all that many games in this niche market for it to have gotten overlooked in.

Going to keep an eye on this one, could be fantastic. Worst case scenario even if the story and such is mediocre I've got another fun tactical rpg to play around with.

Despite this, I used to love Black Isle for their past games when they existed, but unfortunately, their dead. Apparently though, people think Obsidian=Black Iisle because the founders of Black Isile happen to be the CEOs of Obsidian. Which of course, they don't realize that the majority of the ACTUAL talent from Black Isile is not with Obisidan so they like to think that the old and great Black Isile is still alive.

This is incorrect. Chris Avellone works at Obsidian and was the lead designer for Planescape: Torment. He not only designed it but is also responsible for having written a large chunk of its dialogue as well, which if you've played the game you'll know is the main reason to even, well, play the game. Chris Jones is another high-up at Obsidian games and was the lead programmer for the Fallout titles before eventually moving to Troika games and eventually Obsidian.

Not counting the leads, you've also got developers like Timothy Cain, Scott Everts, Darren L. Monahan, Dennis Presnell, Jesse Reynolds, Dan Spitzley and a few others who were with Black Isle before eventually joining with Obsidian. Quite a few also worked at Troika at one point or another. Look it up!

To put it into perspective there are more people working in Obsidian that had to do with Black Isle than there are people who work at Bioware who had to do with Baldur's Gate, which was from around the same 'era' so to speak. This was after all around ten years ago.

 

[Twilight_guy]

Obsidian's programmers suck. That's not just my opinion either, I know a guy who almost worked there and knew important people there, even he admitted that their programming department sucked. Not that they don't try, they are just.. sort of inept. I don;t feel that one flaw suddenly makes them B rate though. Ever company sucks at something.

 

[Xyebane]

I disagree with OP entirely. I think Obsidian are one of the most underrated developers.

It's true that they are usually handed IPs from other developers to do sequels, have you seen the current climate for independent medium sized developers? It's amazing that they aren't dead as it is nearly impossible to find funding for a developer of their size, and is impossible to find funding through traditional means to fund new IPs. Criticizing on this point is ridiculous.

As for having a game built on a pre-built engine, the same thing applies. How many games are made using the unreal engine? How about every new EA game using the same frostbite 2 engine? No one cares who makes the engine. You really expect a medium sized developer to have the money to spend 5 years making their own engine? Who is going to pay them for that?

You say they have this huge advantage making games, yet often they are tossed a contract to make a sequel, given 16 months to finish the game, then the publisher moves the deadline up by 6 months at the last minute (Kotor 2). What kind of advantage is it to be told you have to write an exam but with 2/3 of the promised time told to you when you are halfway through it? And despite this, you see how much people enjoy their games.

Again, as for bugs. This is a symptom of all of the above. Rushed time lines and other peoples engines. If they are working with someones engine then they need support from them to fix bugs that are engine based not script based. If you look at New Vegas, half of the bugs I had in that game are still in FO3 and Bethesda never got around to fixing them. Memory Utilization being the most glaring. If you ask my opinion I think it is ridiculous that Obsidian gets grinded on for being buggy when Bethesda gets a free pass. Look how buggy skyrim was, but no one knocked it down for it.

But the most important reason I like Obsidian is because their games are FUN. When I was young I remember playing a single RPG for months. Being stuck in the story and being eager for my next break that I could play more of it, Like reading a great book. Obsidian is one of the few people that can still do this, weaving an enthralling story into gameplay. I've had more fun with KOTOR2, MotB, F:NV, and AP then most other games in the past few years, especially compared to the budget and time spent on them. People enjoy a developer because they enjoy the games that they produce. It's that simple.

 

[ChupathingyX]

So, you want me to stop loving New Vegas and Obsidian for making it just because you didn't enjoy it?

(And don't give me that "Bethesda was QA" crap, Obsidian was the one who looked at the finished product and said to Bethesda "Yes, ship it")

Then explain to me why in the credits the "Director of Quality Assurance" works for Bethesda, the "QA Manager" works for Bethesda, the "QA Lead" works for Bethesda and why 69 of the 72 "QA Testers" and "Additional QA" all work for Bethesda?

 

[AntiChri5]

Obsidian is fantastic at making a better version of other peoples games. NWN2 was better then NWN, Kotor 2 was better then Kotor and New Vegas was better then Fallout 3. But they always seem to need that foundation of other peoples work to build on.

 

[AntiChri5]

I think when it comes to Obsidian, it is mainly an issue of publishing. They always seem to get pushed by the publisher to get stuff out faster which leads to the huge amounts of bugs in their games like AP and FNV.

Also, my guess is that Stick of Truth will end up being a disgrace to RPGs and will be really dumbed down and not really that good. Also, it will be bugged out the ass. I guarantee it.

Also, I think one thing that people like about Obsidian is that they don't seem to have any "must make money" attitude. Each of their big games tends to have a goal of making a good RPG with story focus and well written background. They are one of the only companies that does that.

Thing is, if you get fucked by the publisher every time you have to ask yourself what you are doing wrong. Executive meddling does happen, but with this frequency?

 

[Terrible Opinions]

Whelp, Xyebane beat me to most everything. Assorted thangs to mention:

1. Sega insisted on the shooting mechanics of Alpha Protocol for reasons no living human being can explain or understand. They thought the game should be "more RPG-ish" and that that would help somehow. "Because Deus Ex" or something, probably. Despite the apparent long development time, there was a longish period between when they finished working on it and when it went gold that they were literally not allowed to touch it by Sega, and no, Obsidian did not choose when to say it was done, just as...

2. It was not Obsidian's call as to when to ship New Vegas. Damn man, of course it wasn't. They're a developer, and one that's never had a whole lot of weight to throw around. Of course that was the publisher's decision. And the game was no buggier than Fallout 3. QA is pretty much always a publisher thing, anyway, which says good things about Square Enix, because Dungeon Siege 3 was pretty much bug free. It just had the noticeable disadvantage of being a god damn Dungeon Siege game and therefore boring as hell and seriously they made a second DS when nobody likes Dungeon Siege why is anyone still making Dungeon Siege games stop.

3. KotOR, important as it is to me and a lot of people, was... really pretty bland. I mean, it's a generally cool concept and it's impressive that they pulled off their first party-based console WRPG as well as they did, but it wasn't really anything special in its genre. It handled very awkwardly with a poor UI, terrible party control, and forgettable writing. KotOR 2 kept the poor UI and control, brought in genuinely interesting writing, and added a whole shitload of scripting errors and cut content. And dropped the "teleport back to the ship" button because Obsidian are a bunch of jerkfaces.

4. NWN was terrible. Its community content was awesome, but the base game was awful. NWN2 was better than it by default. Mask of the Betrayer was legit fucking awesome.

I think when it comes to Obsidian, it is mainly an issue of publishing. They always seem to get pushed by the publisher to get stuff out faster which leads to the huge amounts of bugs in their games like AP and FNV.

Also, my guess is that Stick of Truth will end up being a disgrace to RPGs and will be really dumbed down and not really that good. Also, it will be bugged out the ass. I guarantee it.

Also, I think one thing that people like about Obsidian is that they don't seem to have any "must make money" attitude. Each of their big games tends to have a goal of making a good RPG with story focus and well written background. They are one of the only companies that does that.

Thing is, if you get fucked by the publisher every time you have to ask yourself what you are doing wrong. Executive meddling does happen, but with this frequency?

Sure, why not? You could argue that Double Fine's had a worse run of it, though Obsidian's catalogue of cancelled projects (Alien, Black Hound, etc.) probably puts them over the top.

EDIT: And for fun, a quote from Naughty Dog co-founder Jason Rubin:

We were forced to develop Crash [Bandicoot] 3 in the hallways of their [Universal's] offices. Although they still had a contract to give us office space, they decided to make our lives as miserable as possible. We were under extreme deadlines for a Christmas release, so we couldn't move the team in the middle of the project. We had to stay in those hallways until the game was done. Naughty Dog was working 16- to 20-hour days that year with no weekends.

To make matters worse, Universal refused to pay for the air conditioning in their offices, and thus their hallways, after hours. Los Angeles summers, especially in the San Fernando Valley, are extremely hot. At night, and especially during the weekend, the heat on the thirty-fourth floor passed 100 degrees. This is not an exaggeration. We had to buy thermometers and measure the temperature constantly because the heat was affecting more than our comfort. Our servers were going down because the internal temperatures of the hard drives were going over 130 degrees. And the building wouldn't let us bring in portable air conditioning units, so we were forced to cool the servers by blowing air over a bucket of ice with a fan. That solved the problem until we managed to disguise an air conditioning unit as a mini-refrigerator and sneak it in.

I could tell endless tales of Universal Interactive's spite and contractual misbehavior that year, but that's all history. They tried to break us. They couldn't. Although we all worked shirtless at desks in hallways that year, we got Crash 3 done. To put all of this in perspective, Crash 3 was guaranteed to make Universal hundreds of millions of dollars in profit. Yet, as a company, they didn't have the decency to accept our decision as independents to chart our own destiny. And they were vindictive enough to risk their financial windfall had their nonsense caused us to fail. If Universal had been more humane and reasonable, it is possible that Naughty Dog would still be making Crash products today.

 

[AntiChri5]

Obsidian gets much of that credit for the games its founders made as Black Isle: Fallout 1 & 2, Icewind Dale 1 & 2, and mostly for Planescape: Torment.

Personally, I enjoyed every Obsidian game I played so far. Even though they had buggy releases and unfinished content, they were still great. NWN 2 and KOTOR 2 were very buggy and have much missing content (KOTOR 2 at least got fixed by fans), while Alpha Protocol and New Vegas were very buggy, but got fixed. I think that they are on the right path.

I'm not hyped for Project Eternity though. I would've liked to see them make another non-fantasy RPG.

I wouldn't call New Vegas "fixed".

It's in a worse state now then it was at launch.

At launch, there were 500 extremely irritating/problematic bugs. Now, there is one bug that prevents me from playing entirely.

After a mere 30 hours on my latest file, the game can no longer load The Strip. You know, the most important location in the game.

From what i heard, this was caused by the last patch.

 

[Terrible Opinions]

alpha protocol has a cult following and its one of my favourite rpgs full stop.

i love new vegas although weapon balance is practically non existant and you need the game to be modded to fix that

I just started a new run a couple days ago running jsawyer.esp. Gotta say, I'm really enjoying it.

Also, a mod for recovering throwing weapons. Javelins all day every day.

 

[Baldry]

Obsidians only problem is that they make the most buggy games known to man, I love KotOR just as much if not more then the original. New Vegas is an amazing game and somewhere underneath all the bugs Alpha protocol is a decent game. I wouldn't say we give them too much credit, I'd say we give them the benefit of the doubt more often not because the release good games, they're just poorly made.

 

[DrunkOnEstus]

I can work through and around bugs to experience compelling story and gameplay. I have no interest in working through a bug-free yet vapid, intellectually and emotionally void of a game. They're one of the last groups to remember what made us (older people) fall in love with games, and I'll be damned if I condemn them for carrying that torch. Stronger people would have caved and made Gears of Grand Theft War Duty after the hell they've been through.

 

[SecondPrize]

I'm with you, op. I've come to the point where I simply can't justify day 1 prices for what I know will be riddled with bugs. Say what you want about the relationship between publishers and developers, but Obsidian appears to simply fail in managing their resources and time available in order to ship a polished product.

 

[Haukur Isleifsson]

I't amazes me that people can feel so strongly about something being "meh". It's not like people disagree a whole lot here it's just people that think Obsidian is good and people that think they are not so good.