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[Buggy Loop]

Personally, I was a fan of the people who worked there more so than the name on the shingle. I think the majority of them are gone and we're reaching a situation like The Ramones back in the day. None of the original members were part of the band, but legally they could use the name.

I wanted to reply yesterday, but I was stuck on phone for majority of day and forgot

This is Obsidian as of recently

I'm putting in a spoiler tag their 5 part documentary of their 20th anniversary. You see a lot of the management team working there and most of them are veterans.

Its a good documentary by the way, outside of looking at the staff, there's amazing stories in there about the coming of Obsidian. I cannot but chuckle at the idea of having Bioware engineers coming to help for KOTOR 2 and he's welcome in Feargus' attic. Must watch for any obsidian fan.

Spoiler: 20th anniversary documentary

And looking at game db, linkedin and news around, I've accumulated a list of key peoples

The 3 founders of Troika (Fallout 1 & 2) work for Microsoft now. Tim Cain, Leonard Boyarsky are now at Obsidian, and Jason Anderson is at inXile.

The key peoples of New vegas, Josh Sawyer (director, lead designer, system designer), Scott Everts (world building lead), Charlie Staples (Area lead design lead, lead level designer) are still at Obsidian, and likely of course many other in the lower hierarchy.

Goes without saying that Pillars of Eternity crew is in.

There's one loonie that went on a fight with Elon Musk with drunken/high English levels. I'm reserving judgement until the game is out.

The previews were very good, outside of the big medias like IGN & Gamespot even, Force gaming, Fextralife, MrMattyPlays, Skill Up, Colteastwood, Mortismal gaming. You can have varying opinions on any of them but I mean, then what preview to even trust.

If you don't believe any youtuber impressions, there's one dude who simply didn't give a shit and captured 90 mins of it without almost any comments, no editing, nada. part 1 part 2. I can't even recall the last time a developer allowed peoples to showcase their captures in a preview. It's been for like what, 15 years now roughly that previews are curated footage sent by marketing teams and every media regurgitate the same footage but with different words over it? To me it means they are confident.

To me this shows PoE 1 & 2 in 3D. A more simplistic character creator as its locked on godlikes (for story purpose), no sex, but its much more ambitious, the map design, the dungeons, the treasure hints, the verticality of the exploration, this is a huge step-up for Obsidian and anyone that was fine playing an isometric cRPG has not much reasons to not be hyped by this.

 

[simpatico]

I wanted to reply yesterday, but I was stuck on phone for majority of day and forgot

This is Obsidian as of recently

I'm putting in a spoiler tag their 5 part documentary of their 20th anniversary. You see a lot of the management team working there and most of them are veterans.

Its a good documentary by the way, outside of looking at the staff, there's amazing stories in there about the coming of Obsidian. I cannot but chuckle at the idea of having Bioware engineers coming to help for KOTOR 2 and he's welcome in Feargus' attic. Must watch for any obsidian fan.

Spoiler: 20th anniversary documentary

And looking at game db, linkedin and news around, I've accumulated a list of key peoples

The 3 founders of Troika (Fallout 1 & 2) work for Microsoft now. Tim Cain, Leonard Boyarsky are now at Obsidian, and Jason Anderson is at inXile.

The key peoples of New vegas, Josh Sawyer (director, lead designer, system designer), Scott Everts (world building lead), Charlie Staples (Area lead design lead, lead level designer) are still at Obsidian, and likely of course many other in the lower hierarchy.

Goes without saying that Pillars of Eternity crew is in.

There's one loonie that went on a fight with Elon Musk with drunken/high English levels. I'm reserving judgement until the game is out.

The previews were very good, outside of the big medias like IGN & Gamespot even, Force gaming, Fextralife, MrMattyPlays, Skill Up, Colteastwood, Mortismal gaming. You can have varying opinions on any of them but I mean, then what preview to even trust.

If you don't believe any youtuber impressions, there's one dude who simply didn't give a shit and captured 90 mins of it without almost any comments, no editing, nada. part 1 part 2. I can't even recall the last time a developer allowed peoples to showcase their captures in a preview. It's been for like what, 15 years now roughly that previews are curated footage sent by marketing teams and every media regurgitate the same footage but with different words over it? To me it means they are confident.

To me this shows PoE 1 & 2 in 3D. A more simplistic character creator as its locked on godlikes (for story purpose), no sex, but its much more ambitious, the map design, the dungeons, the treasure hints, the verticality of the exploration, this is a huge step-up for Obsidian and anyone that was fine playing an isometric cRPG has not much reasons to not be hyped by this.

Love em enough to sub to a month of gamepass on release. I’m using Outer Worlds as context for a lot of what I see in those trailers. Would you be content with Avowed if it was a melee and magic focused Outer Worlds? Same general size, enemy diversity, dialog quality, loot diversity etc. My time with Outer Worlds was just “level up the rifle and proceed through the game unimpeded”

 

[JayK47]

I wanted to reply yesterday, but I was stuck on phone for majority of day and forgot

This is Obsidian as of recently

I'm putting in a spoiler tag their 5 part documentary of their 20th anniversary. You see a lot of the management team working there and most of them are veterans.

Its a good documentary by the way, outside of looking at the staff, there's amazing stories in there about the coming of Obsidian. I cannot but chuckle at the idea of having Bioware engineers coming to help for KOTOR 2 and he's welcome in Feargus' attic. Must watch for any obsidian fan.

Spoiler: 20th anniversary documentary

And looking at game db, linkedin and news around, I've accumulated a list of key peoples

The 3 founders of Troika (Fallout 1 & 2) work for Microsoft now. Tim Cain, Leonard Boyarsky are now at Obsidian, and Jason Anderson is at inXile.

The key peoples of New vegas, Josh Sawyer (director, lead designer, system designer), Scott Everts (world building lead), Charlie Staples (Area lead design lead, lead level designer) are still at Obsidian, and likely of course many other in the lower hierarchy.

Goes without saying that Pillars of Eternity crew is in.

There's one loonie that went on a fight with Elon Musk with drunken/high English levels. I'm reserving judgement until the game is out.

The previews were very good, outside of the big medias like IGN & Gamespot even, Force gaming, Fextralife, MrMattyPlays, Skill Up, Colteastwood, Mortismal gaming. You can have varying opinions on any of them but I mean, then what preview to even trust.

If you don't believe any youtuber impressions, there's one dude who simply didn't give a shit and captured 90 mins of it without almost any comments, no editing, nada. part 1 part 2. I can't even recall the last time a developer allowed peoples to showcase their captures in a preview. It's been for like what, 15 years now roughly that previews are curated footage sent by marketing teams and every media regurgitate the same footage but with different words over it? To me it means they are confident.

To me this shows PoE 1 & 2 in 3D. A more simplistic character creator as its locked on godlikes (for story purpose), no sex, but its much more ambitious, the map design, the dungeons, the treasure hints, the verticality of the exploration, this is a huge step-up for Obsidian and anyone that was fine playing an isometric cRPG has not much reasons to not be hyped by this.

Is it black and white to hide the purple?

Looking back at Obsidian games, they have not made a decent game since Pillars of Eternity 1 and 2 and Tyranny. So 2018. Outer Worlds I have played 3 times because I hate myself. The character designs are so awful and ugly and bland. I also played Grounded with friends and that was a grindy drag. I just do not think they can make decent games anymore, for whatever reason. I am sure they have talent to do so, but are being pressured and directed to water it all down and add in content for "modern audiences". I would love for Avowed to prove me wrong, but I will not be excited for it or play it anywhere near release, if at all.

 

[Ozriel]

Obsidian used to get in trouble by biting off more than they can chew. Alpha Protocol, New Vegas etc. Pushing the limits of storytelling and gameplay. This and Outer Worlds are like the polar opposite of that philosophy. Completely derivative and safe. Avowed is clearly a Skyrim dupe, but instead of trying to go even bigger and deeper, they just make smaller and synthetic feeling. My time with Outer Worlds is informing how I interpret what I see in those trailers.

Self professed obsidian fan, but you expect them - with 200 employees working on TWO RPGs - to make Avowed bigger and deeper than Skyrim?

Outer Worlds was made from scratch in less than 3 years, with a limited budget. It’s well known there are extenuating circumstances for how that game turned out, given the budget and time allocated. Both Avowed and Outer Worlds 2 won’t have that issue.


Your dissatisfaction with Outer Worlds is understandable, but it’s made with completely different circumstances with Avowed.

 

[JayK47]

Your dissatisfaction with Outer Worlds is understandable, but it’s made with completely different circumstances with Avowed.

How so?

 

[Ozriel]

Is it black and white to hide the purple?

Looking back at Obsidian games, they have not made a decent game since Pillars of Eternity 1 and 2 and Tyranny. So 2018.

Grounded was great, and Pentiment was even better received critically speaking, with quite a decent number of GOTY awards.

I am sure they have talent to do so, but are being pressured and directed to water it all down and add in content for "modern audiences".

One of Microsoft’s biggest issue is their hands off approach when it comes to managing their studios.
Who would be pressuring Obsidian anyway?

How so?

Obsidian were contracted by Private Division to make Outer Worlds. Given just slightly over 3 years and a limited budget. The game was also made in Unreal Engine, an engine a lot of the staff were unfamiliar with. about 70 - 80 devs in today, according to Schreier.

Avowed is being made with a bigger team (125+, reportedly). It’s been in development for 5 years or so, and they’ve got a bigger budget and more time.

The circumstances are completely different.

 

[Buggy Loop]

Grounded was great, and Pentiment was even better received critically speaking, with quite a decent number of GOTY awards.

One of Microsoft’s biggest issue is their hands off approach when it comes to managing their studios.
Who would be pressuring Obsidian anyway?

Obsidian were contracted by Private Division to make Outer Worlds. Given just slightly over 3 years and a limited budget. The game was also made in Unreal Engine, an engine a lot of the staff were unfamiliar with. about 70 - 80 devs in today, according to Schreier.

Avowed is being made with a bigger team (125+, reportedly). It’s been in development for 5 years or so, and they’ve got a bigger budget and more time.

The circumstances are completely different.

Grounded was a major success. I mean tastes and everything, some peoples don't like crafting survivals, but it was a huge success and I personally loved it. Playing it coop was a blast.

Pentiment won acclaims by looking the way it did, imagine that. The writing has to be top notch.

Dennis Presnell, a 25 years veteran that started at Black Isle studios for Fallout and Baldur's Gate series, and at Obsidian since 2003, says that Avowed is the most confident he's ever been in a game at this point. No matter that he's an employee, the guy has been in the biggest RPGs for 25 years, why the fuck would he even put his reputation on the line for shilling obsidian. He explains that for most of his projects, including previous Obsidian ones, he had a level of dread months before game release but not this time.

"Games are really hard to make, and every experience is different", Presnell begins. "I've always felt a certain level of dread months before a game shipped, a case of the nerves. But this is the most confident I've ever been in my experience at this stage of the project", he explains.

For Presnell, things could not be going more smoothly as Avowed's final months in development approach."I'm just overjoyed at how well everything's come together" he says. "The team is now closing things down and fixing bugs and working on perf, and I'm going to be really proud of this game when it's available to the public. I can't wait, actually."

It resonates with the previews, with some of them predicting this could be GOATSidian