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

[Olikar]

and if I remove the logos, you wouldn't be able to tell the difference.

Actually I think I could, I would look for the one that actually implements roleplay features (that would be Obsidian's)

 

[Traun]

Ha, "they copied Mass Effect, only it's completely different!"

AP tried to be a variant on Deus Ex, not ME. There's many similarities with Dx, from the slow targeting reticule to the skillsets. Not so much with ME.

So AP didn't have original gameplay(if you know your games), but what shooter post ty 2000 really does? Shitty controls and dumb AI/level design really did it in for AP.

I dunno, the sequences of chest high-wall action/dialogue wheel made me think more of ME than anything else.

You have played the games haven't you?
Mass Effect is little more than a third person cover shooter in between the talky scenes. There's some class-based abilities and some NPCs to order around, but that's ME in a nutshell. Completely straightforward shoot all the bad guys.

The original Deus Ex is mostly solitary and first person. Dx has stealth, non-lethal takedowns, hiding the bodies, messing with security systems, gadgets, character stats affecting your aim and ofcourse there's dialogue menus too.

Alpha protocol plays like an inferior Dx with an added cover mechanic, or like a transition between the old Dx and new Dx:HR.

I admit, you have a point.

 

[Krantos]

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.

That's the excuse I always see carted out when this topic comes out, and I'm just going to say what I always do:

Why is it EVERY publisher Obsidian works with? Also Why can other companies work with those publishers but Obsidian can't?

For myself, I'm really interested in Eternity, not because of the game, but because it will finally answer the question of whether it's been Obsidian all this time or if it really is the publishers.

Time will tell. In the end, time will tell.

 

[ThriKreen]

Remember that NWN was advertised as primarily being a multiplayer centric 'replicate table-top D&D' platform, coupled with its toolset for modding. The campaign was, from what I remember reading, originally 4 separate "demo/example" modules that got mixed together. And it got a very active modding and multiplayer community out of it. To criticize NWN based on it and only ever playing it in single-player does both you and the game a great injustice.

How well that design and legacy was maintained in NWN2, well, I'll refrain from commenting as I don't have direct experience with it.

Also, NWN1 horses are evil.

This is kind of random, but have you ever been to Toronto? I'd love to hear an Albertian opinion on Toronto. Im just weird and random like that. Is it true what they say, that everyone in canada hates toronto?

And as someone who grew up in Toronto and lived in Edmonton for a couple years, it's pretty much jealousy - Toronto's just way better.

For one thing, winter is not a PITA (assuming it didn't fall off from frostbite).

 

[veloper]

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.

That's the excuse I always see carted out when this topic comes out, and I'm just going to say what I always do:

Why is it EVERY publisher Obsidian works with? Also Why can other companies work with those publishers but Obsidian can't?

You could ofcourse approach this problem from the publisher's end too.

Bethesda cannot even work with themselves seeing as how all the Elder Scrolls games have been buggy and glitchy like hell. And Fallout 3 too ofcourse. We have to give Obs the benefit of the doubt in the case of Fallout NV.

Atari. Haven't heared about them publishing something interesting in ages actually. Last RPG in years was some puss filled action game called Daggerdale. Anyway, the original NWN published Atari and made by Bioware, sucked hard and I prefer to play Obs' NWN2.
Lucas Arts. Have they published anything worthwhile ever since they stopped making awesome puzzle adventure games like Monkey Island? Kotor 1 sucks and Kotor 2 kinda sucks too. You could go both ways.

So SEGA. The Total War games are nice even if they are kinda buggy aswell.
The only thing we can really hold against Obsidian is Alpha Protocol and not for bugs, but gameplay that simply isn't good.

For myself, I'm really interested in Eternity, not because of the game, but because it will finally answer the question of whether it's been Obsidian all this time or if it really is the publishers.

Time will tell. In the end, time will tell.

I see PE as their last chance too.

 

[dancinginfernal]

Snip

Can I just say that you stole this thread for me?

After reading your first post, and then finding your retorts towards those who don't comprehend the relationship of devs/pubs - I actually scoured the thread just to read more of your posts.

You are an enlightening read.

 

[Veldt Falsetto]

Obsidian gets credit from Black Isle just as Lionhead got credit from Bullfrog.

Seems these PC gamers just can't focus on what new things these companies are doing, most console based gamers haven't heard of Black Isle and Bullfrog are the guys that did Theme Park and Theme Hospital...

In my eyes neither of these studios have done anything spectacular.

Obsidian...New Vegas was good and Dungeon Siege III was pretty solid but that's all the credit I can give them

 

[bullet_sandw1ch]

Ill have to check out temple, Ive heard about that one on and off but never got around to it. Ive also heard a lot of good about mask of the betrayer, but my prejudice against nwn2 prevented me from trying it...maybe Ill give it a shot when I have time.



This is kind of random, but have you ever been to Toronto? I'd love to hear an Albertian opinion on Toronto. Im just weird and random like that. Is it true what they say, that everyone in canada hates toronto?

I live in Toronto, and honestly there's nowhere i enjoy living more. its so varied, and interesting. i wouldnt say that everyone in Canada hates toronto, but it does kind of take the limelight when you bring up cities in Canada.

 

[Sutter Cane]

Obsidian gets credit from Black Isle just as Lionhead got credit from Bullfrog.

Seems these PC gamers just can't focus on what new things these companies are doing, most console based gamers haven't heard of Black Isle and Bullfrog are the guys that did Theme Park and Theme Hospital...

In my eyes neither of these studios have done anything spectacular.

Obsidian...New Vegas was good and Dungeon Siege III was pretty solid but that's all the credit I can give them

What about Alpha Protocol? That was an excellent game. Also what about the excellent writing of KOTOR II?

 

[Saviordd1]

From what I can gather it's good writing and quite good gameplay that they're renowned for, I haven't seen a post/met anyone who thinks that they're the Holy Grail of Game Design.

Personally, I like them a lot due to Fallout New Vegas and KoTOR 2, the former as a result of making a Fallout game that's actually fun & charming, unlike Fallout 1-3 which all felt rather bleak, and the latter because they actually attempted to explore the grey area of the Star Wars mythos, and for once, didn't present the Sith as a bunch of inherently evil emo bastards and the Jedi as righteous protectors of the galaxy, instead it presented both on the same level, ie, neither philosophy is right, and neither faction is better than the other, a stark contrast to KoTOR 1's insufferable preaching of the Jedi as the one's in the right(god those endings were unbearable).

So, in short, (I presume), good writing and decent gameplay can both be blown completely out of proportion, and indeed they have, as a result, that's why Obsidian is regarded in such a manner: the same way that Bioware was seen as the exemplars of game writing, even though their moral choice malarkey was completely biased and was nowhere near the level of The Walking Dead(the game).

But that's the fucking point of Star Wars...

The Jedi are gods angels, the Sith are the devils servants.

THAT'S HOW IT GOES.

Star Wars is set up as Black and White for a reason, because that's the appeal of it.

What is it with today's society and not allowing things to be black and white occasionally in fiction? If I wanted endless grey on grey morality I'd never play video games since real life gives me enough of that.

Some franchises are based on grey v. grey, Star Wars isn't one of them.

 

[Veldt Falsetto]

Obsidian gets credit from Black Isle just as Lionhead got credit from Bullfrog.

Seems these PC gamers just can't focus on what new things these companies are doing, most console based gamers haven't heard of Black Isle and Bullfrog are the guys that did Theme Park and Theme Hospital...

In my eyes neither of these studios have done anything spectacular.

Obsidian...New Vegas was good and Dungeon Siege III was pretty solid but that's all the credit I can give them

What about Alpha Protocol? That was an excellent game. Also what about the excellent writing of KOTOR II?

If Alpha Protocol was an excellent game then Deus Ex: Human Revolution must be the greatest game of all time ever...

Not played KOTOR II, can't say anything about it, as I said as a console gamer I have no experience of what Black Isle did or what anyone did on PC for that matter, unless it was the Theme games, I played the hell outta those as a kid

 

[The Madman]

Remember that NWN was advertised as primarily being a multiplayer centric 'replicate table-top D&D' platform, coupled with its toolset for modding. The campaign was, from what I remember reading, originally 4 separate "demo/example" modules that got mixed together. And it got a very active modding and multiplayer community out of it. To criticize NWN based on it and only ever playing it in single-player does both you and the game a great injustice.

How well that design and legacy was maintained in NWN2, well, I'll refrain from commenting as I don't have direct experience with it.

Also, NWN1 horses are evil.

It was advertised like this:


Epic Story of faith, love, and betrayal my ass. And as if the singleplayer weren't bad enough the game barely worked on release anyway, so you had a bland forgettable singleplayer experience who's sole redeeming feature was that it only worked half the time anyway.

Eventually that was all fixed up over the course of two expansions and many patches later plus a whole library of often excellent fan created modules, and I'd like to stress that as it is today Neverwinter Nights is worth buying for any fan of the rpg genre. But for a primarily singleplayer rpg fan like myself...

Yeah, it was a complete disappointment on release. By contrast on release NWN2 was much more satisfying and has over time proven to be a fantastic rpg in its own rights. This is why I don't understand the many comments throughout this topic and others deriding NWN2, for example:

NWN2 was absolute garbage. Terrible engine. Terrible campaign. Much worse than the original (which was also garbage, but hey).

I guess if you're playing the game exclusively for the multiplayer I can see it, but as an overall experience I tend to consider both games on par with one another with NWN excelling in mp and NWN singleplayer with many brilliant fan modules between them.

Great series.

 

[PrinceOfShapeir]

Obsidian gets way too much credit for some stuff and way too little for other stuff. KotoR 2 -sucks-. I actually like the dark subversion of the Star Wars setting, but it has the crippling problem of all the characters being A: Boring, B: Assholes, C: Both, or D: From KotoR 1. NWN 2...nobody really likes NWN 2, but it still sucks. Primarily for the ending, but also because it missed the central thing that made Neverwinter Nights great, the easy and comprehensive modding.

On the other side of the coin you have Alpha Protocol, a gem with some very serious flaws, and Fallout: New Vegas, a game that successfully and masterfully married the design philosophies of the first two Fallout games with that of Fallout 3, creating a game that is better than either, and for some reason it gets a lot of shit over it.

 

[Traun]

You don't seem to understand that when it comes to games development, publishers have a final say in pretty much everything.

I know this, I know they monitor every milestone with clockwork precision, that they tend to move schedules or to directly involve themselves into projects. I know they tend to mismanage things on a legendary scales. I also know that a lot of projects get scrapped on the finish line.

So?

How does this make Obsidian a special snowflake? Every studio goes through the same stuff, studios owned by publishers even more so. Except every time Obsidian fucks up, they come out and blame it on a publisher.

Look at this?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wt-iVFxgFWk#t=2m20s

Carmack could have came out and said it was the fault of ATI, he didn't.

When are you going to see the lead programmer of Obsidian come out and say "It's true, we did not put as much effort into bug testing as we could have and the results are pretty obvious." or Avellone say something like "The truth is that we had a grand vision we could not sustain and mismanaged the resources available to us, resulting in cut content and an overall sub-par product, we apologize."? Fuck if they do that, it's the publishers fault.

Publishers are the ones who step in with reduced development schedules, reduced finances, and cancelled projects.

If it wasn't for the publishers in the first place there would be NO finances, NO project and NO schedule for said project. They interfere because they are interested in profits(Obsidian is a business), because they have trusted the developer with money, and because there are usually 10-20 studios just like Obsidian slaving away.

 

[Saviordd1]

-snip-

Basically your whole post is my entire point.
It's star wars, don't over think it and stop forcing grey on it. (A reason I'm glad that Bioware pretty much ignored the second game as much as possible for TOR)

Not everything has to be grey, and making it grey didn't make it more interesting, it just fucks with the entire fantasy of Star Wars.

People seem to forget that sometimes fantasy is supposed to be that, fantasy, a place that's simpler and more interesting than the world we live in.

 

[Saviordd1]

-snip-

I love how you concentrate on about two lines from the entire trailer.

You DID see how the rest of the trailer was "Yeah, multiplayer, dungeon master, create your own shit".

But that one sentence PROVES they were marketing it on a single player centric adventure.

 

[The Madman]

-snip-

I love how you concentrate on about two lines from the entire trailer.

You DID see how the rest of the trailer was "Yeah, multiplayer, dungeon master, create your own shit".

But that one sentence PROVES they were marketing it on a single player centric adventure.

It shows exactly what it shows: That singleplayer and multiplayer alike were being advertised as strengths of the game, which for fans of Biowares previous foray into the Forgotten Realms was more than enough of a promise to get excited about. I never said singleplayer was the games sole purpose.

Relax, like I said in the post you're quoting as well ultimately NWN ended up becoming a fantastic experience. Bioware's singleplayer content never did become one of its great strengths, though Hordes of the Underdark was pretty fun. But the easily accessible tools allowing any fan with the will and patience a chance to tell their own story makes NWN a must own for any rpg fan. NWN2 is similar in that regard although reverse; multiplayer is not its great strength, but the content included in Mask of the Betrayer is easily the singleplayer high-point for the entire franchise. The Obsidian sequel also boasts mod tools which while unfortunately more complex than those of the first game, making it less accessible, does redeem itself in its increased options which allows for extremely unique and heavily customized player campaign such as Misery Stone, which at a glance barely even resembles NWN2 save for the UI.

Spoiler: And if you doubt my authenticity when speaking about the games on release, I present to you NWN1 launch copy, NWN2 launch copy, expansions, and hell, Baldur's Gate 2 and Icewind Dale to boot.

Both NWN games ultimately became fantastic rpg experience. As I've said time and time again in this topic this is why I'm so confused when people present NWN2 as being an abomination while holding the first game up as some sort of paragon. Both were and continue to be flawed in a number of ways but redeem themselves in the end as two of the strongest examples of D&D roleplaying in the gaming industry. Obsidian and Bioware alike.