Obsidian Entertainment - Interview @ RPS

Isometric Skyrim would be cool that focus on a single character rather than a group. I'm definitely sure NPCs and dialogues would be more advanced than a Bethesda game. At least we won't see dialogues like this, "Hey I'm bla bla. I'm a fighter. I lost my sword in bla bla. Go fetch me that."

For licensed IPs I hope it's Arcanum or Icewind Dale. Arcanum 2 would be great and since Tim Cain is in the team now it would be in safe hands. I also know that Obsidian bought Icewind Dale name rights. If they can come to an agreement with WotC about D&D rights, I'm sure they can surpass 5 m $ at Kickstarter.

So I hope their next Kickstarter would be Arcanum 2 or Icewind Dale 3.
 
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Although I can't think of that many games with a licensed IP that were good, let alone great. Tie Fighter and Kotor 1&2 made great games of the Star Wars license, but surely there must be others?
Krondor, D&D, DSA/TDE/RoA, Vampire: The Masquerade, Warhammer, Dune, Lego, Rainbow Six, Lord of the Rings, The Walking Dead, to name a few. ;)

I guess they are talking about another D&D game. If they really want to start another KS before Eternity released, they shouldn't do it without a good IP, because it would presumably not get the same attention. IMHO, Torment was successful because of the possibility to get a true successor in the spirit of Planescape from the same team. Obsidian should have nothing less and I can't remember many franchises in this league. Fallout doesn't seem to be an option in the next time.
 
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Krondor, D&D, DSA/TDE/RoA, Vampire: The Masquerade, Warhammer, Dune, Lego, Rainbow Six, Lord of the Rings, The Walking Dead, to name a few. ;)

My bad, of course the D&D games and V:TM should have been mentioned by me too (facepalm). Warhammer? I haven't played any games with the Warhammer IP that lives up to the greatness of the boardgame (especially 40k). I would love to see one though, and I heard that SEGA has aquired the rights...Warhammer:Total War? Hell yeah! Good Dune game? Where, what? LOTR? No thanks, no MMORPG's for me. Rainbow six, Lego and The Walking Dead I haven't played at all, but I'll just take your words for it that they are good games, not my cup of tea though I believe.

Back on topic, D&D license would be a nice one, Neverwinter Nights 3? I would prefer it even more if we could have a different setting than Fantasy though...SciFi or Cyberpunk if I could choose.
 
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I'm definitely against episodic games. When I play an RPG I start, play, finish it and uninstall it. I don't want to keep 20 games installed just waiting for the next episode. Besides, my memory is not that good, chances are by the time the next episode pops up, I already forgot all that's happened before.
So let them make it episodic if they want, I'll wait until they're officially done and buy the bundle in Steam for $5 or whatever.
 
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I'm not against the approach if it'll be standalone episodes like Ubi's BloodDragon.
But also I won't be eager to play it until the game is completely finished.
 
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I'm not totally against episodes, but against bottleneck releases. It wouldn't be that much of a problem if parts of the story are delivered in chunks when the rest of the game is an open-world like Skyrim, where you can find diverting entertainment or discover different things besides the main storyline and can come back to it with the next update. But things like "this area opens when we release the next episode" or "Sorry, you reached the end of this week's episode, come back next Monday" is a no go.

My only guess is, this would need a new development strategy, because it could mean you have to create different stages of a game world to reflect the evolution of the game.
 
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I would have to be extremely desperate for a game to play to ever consider an episodic title. Do not like the idea at all.
 
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Me neither.
 
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I guess, a couple things…

1) I'm not giving another dime to Obsidian until I see the finished, polished Pillars of Eternity.

Better to sit tight and be ready to call any state of the final version of Pillars of Eternity polished.

When KS started to grow in importance for video games funding, some, on this site, argued on the risk of seeing developpers take the money and run away to the Bahamas. To which I retorted that the opportunity of getting one year to two years of work paid upfront was too good an opportunity to be spoilt with unthoughtful behaviour.

This vision of developpment, wishing for episodic dealing of a video game, is a fine way to make the most out of a crowdfunding method. If this ever passes, they will collect two, three or four years of upfront paid work, a luxury in these times.

Obsidian are composed with seasoned professionals so the production quality of their products is going to be at least good. They secured enough proficiency in various domains involved in computer video games to ensure that part.

Will their game be ever polished in the way they will give out their best? No because of the structure of a crowdfunding project.

As soon as the project is released, they enter the path of diminishing returns and will have to cope with any failure in their developpment choices.
Much more demanding and frustrating than switching to the elaboration of a new KS project that will start up afresh, full of enthusiasm, free of past mistakes and coming with plenty of promises.

Their rationale for explaining the necessity of an episodic game does not stand as their games, due to the fundamental differences in budget, are not to rival AAA projects in terms of content.
Why should three millions budget games compete with 100 millions budget games in terms of content? You expect something else from small budget games.

But, when the whole of it is put back in the context of a crowdfunding system, it makes sense as it could ensure that a developpment team secures several years of work, releasing projects with good production quality and moving on to the next without being bothered with facing the burden of the past.
Always restarting, always finding back the period of enthusiasm, of hope and positive energy that characterize the launch of a new concept and project.

Way better than being compelled to service and support a software whose limitations are known.
 
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