Bottom line: Noone is skilled? That seems to be where this is all leading.
Ehm, no. We're talking about patterns.
- Risen was exceptionally bug-free, but their previous title was Gothic 3 - obviously not the result of a scope gone wrong or over ambition, but technically inept people.
You're thinking in rigid terms. I'm taking the entire history (as far as I'm aware of it) of companies into consideration, with as many nuances as I can before I start speaking about this kind of thing. I think back to Fallout 2 - where Obsidian people were involved under a different name. Exact same case here. Established engine, established ruleset - incredibly buggy game.
Again, the original Gothic is an entirely different thing - because we're talking about limited funds and a game created entirely from scratch.
Gothic 3 was definitely a case of biting over too much, because PB have demonstrated their skill time and time again. Obsidian haven't.
The fact that PB managed to create a streaming engine at the level they did, at the state they must have been in - starting out - speaks volumes about their competence. Even if I must mention that Gothic had severe UI issues, and in that way they were lacking - starting out.
- KotOR certainly had its share of bugs back in the days, and had quite a few issues that would lead to crashes. Luckily most of the issues are gone now through patches. Also, KotOR probably built as heavily upon NWN as NWN2 did, using the rewritten Odyssey Engine (Aurora) where NWN2 used the Electron Engine (also based on Aurora). Both engines are more or less rewritten from scratch, so I'm not entirely sure what they actually inherit from Aurora. Probably combat mechanics or some such thing.
I don't recall any significant bugs, and I personally had a very smooth experience. I specifically remember KotOR as one of the very best gaming experiences of my life.
Also, BioWare programmers are clearly technically inept because of their very bugged title Awakening, so they're ruled out by default.
Didn't I just present an alternative explanation? Why ignore it?
- Hmm Drakensang. I don't know enough about the previous titles of Radon Labs. They might just have nailed their one attempt at making an advanced RPG - very impressive if that is the case, and certainly an exception.
To be honest, you're right here. I don't really know them well enough. I only have that one game to base my opinion on, and I'm open to being wrong. But the game was certainly extremely competent.
- MMOs are not comparable as they are completely different in both scope and development time, which is why I ruled them out when asking for examples a few posts ago.
They're very different, but they're also much harder to do right - which is why they're especially relevant.
The reason why I rule out entire companies based on single games is simple: We're talking about the same programmers here. Their technical skills do not vary from project to project. The developers of Risen did not all-of-a-sudden become redicilously good compared to the developers of Gothic 3.
You're forgetting the past, and the fact that Gothic is an amazing accomplishment considering the entire thing is made from scratch by an unknown developer. Gothic 3 is obviously a case of over-ambition, and we can be reasonably sure based on countless interviews with PB.
Of course, from my point of view, their technical skills have nothing to do with it - there are other circumstances determining the stability and performance of a game. I'm not saying skills have nothing to do with the outcome of a project, but I am saying that technical skills have nothing to do with these specific projects - the developers here are experienced and have proven their skill previously.
But we agree here, and I think PB are incredibly talented in most ways. They're not QUITE as good as Bio or Blizzard in terms of visual aesthetics - and Risen was not particularly well animated, for instance.
Then again, Blizzard probably have the best craftsmen in the entire american part of the industry. THEY are skilled. Creative? Not so much.
By the way, Lionhead of Fable "fame" - are people I consider INCREDIBLY talented as well. Everything they've done has been amazing in terms of polish and technical quality.
In the RPG genre, the key issue is development time (costs) VS scope: Basically, an RPG is not profitable if you take too long before releasing it, because you can't expect stellar sales (unlike some genres where you can expect millions of copies sold). On the other hand, the mechanics, rules and overall size of most RPGs tend to be significantly more advanced than that of a comparable game in most other genres (i.e FPS games).
We agree. But my world is not black and white, it's shock full of nuances.
I have to look at a lot of things before I can make a judgment call.
It's simple in that way, because we simply see different things when we look at Obsidian. You seem to think of them as highly skilled coders and artists, and I think of them as merely competent.
Every single thing they've done has been based on the finished work of others. Maybe once they do something from scratch, we'll know for sure.
Bigger scope + less copies sold = you have to pay the price somewhere. That is quite logical. Usually that price comes in the form of instability, bugs and performance issues, because these things take the longest to fix. It takes forever to fix all the bugs of a project of a certain size.
Agreed.
Again, the "skill" of the individual programmer is not the issue here.
We already agree on the artisty, which is probably my biggest problem with Obsidian.
Their ability to code a game into a smooth and polished experience is perhaps feasible, but I have yet to see it happen.
So, my conclusion has to be that they're not that good, because I refuse to believe everything they do wrong is about poor planning. At least, I have no evidence of that - and all their games suffer from being poorly optimised.
But we're going in circles, with guesswork.
If you want to pretend we're doing anything but guessing based on our experiences, then go ahead.
I see it as a disagreement based on somewhat insubstantial evidence. But that doesn't mean I'm not convinced they're lacking in technical terms, as I am.
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Maybe it would help if I emphasized WHY I think they're lacking.
If their games had been done from scratch, using their own engines or a licensed engine without groundwork - THEN I would be willing to believe they could be highly skilled technically, and not overly committed as the single reason.
But that's not the case.
I think they know this, actually, and I think they understand that for games of the kind of scopes they've been doing to be feasible, for them, they NEED to have stuff to work from. I doubt they could develop a truly competent engine from scratch. I doubt they have a strong coding team - and I think they're really mostly about design and mechanics. Troika = the same thing.
It makes sense, doesn't it?
Afterall, both Obsidian and Troika came from Black Isle.