Project Eternity - Closes with >$4.1M

[DArtagnan]

Yep. Like I said unless you've been there Dart, you don't know what you're talking about.

Been where, exactly? Have you been somewhere that enables you to establish that Obsidian is not to blame for the state of their releases?

Also, I've had to look through foreign code several times in my life - and I know how insanely complicated it can be to decipher -without proper documentation or thorough comments.

But we're talking about professionals with full access to documentation and the people behind the engines.

Your point is hardly revelant, unless you can point out how Obsidian used poorly documented code with poor understanding. Where have you been to grant that kind of insight?

 

[DArtagnan]

Again, the tech bugs aren't the only issues with F:NV. I know the engine is crash-prone in several iterations.

The primary difference between FO3 and F:NV is the amount of polish applied to the world and level design. F:NV looks absolutely awful in comparison, and there's an endless amount of poorly aligned meshes and floating objects. FO3 wasn't perfect - but it's like night and day.

But I'm not going to go through hours of youtube footage to point this out - and I'm sure there's no way to make it clear if you think Obsidian did such a fantastic job.

They do great writing/quests/mechanics - but they suck at polish and visual aesthetics in general. Well "suck" is my opinion - I guess we can call them below average to be fair.

 

[DArtagnan]

I got no issues in KoTOR2 from what I remember, the game played as smooth as KoTOR 1 to me. Avellon blame himself for the state of the game though.

Really? Try entering the mineshaft on the first level. The game slows to a crawl, even today. You should have tried playing it on Xbox.

The entirety of KotOR 2 is a prime example of shoddy level design with bland aesthetics.

I think you mixed NWN2 with NWN there. I was never able to have a smooth NWN running when it was released. It hate ATI video cards (and apparently the latest patch make it worst from what I read). I played NWN2 on max from day 1 (at release) with no issues, the 1st patch did make the framerate better though.

No, I don't confuse these things. But I can't argue against that sort of thing. I remember very clearly a widespread negative response to NWN2 - and especially regarding extremely poor framerates and absurdly poor UI/camera controls.

NWN had bugs, sure, but it was quite smooth from the get-go. The engine was less advanced - but it was quite a feat all things considered.

Alpha Protocols: Obsidian most bugged games I think, but nothing major and the glitch seemed to stay in the starting area. Well beside the quick load ones, had to go back in the menu to load an old save game correctly. Sega approved the game to be released in this state after they kept it on the shelf for months though.

AP was very quirky and buggy for me - but I'd say the game suffered more from awkward aesthetics and animations than gamestopping bugs.

 

[kalniel]

How nice for you - but I'm not sure what your point is? The editor was a mess compared to the NWN editor, and that's why you're seeing a LOT fewer quality mods for NWN2. That includes SP mods.

The editor was not a mess. It was just more flexible.

Anyone could make a quality NWN mod because it was basically pre-fab. That's not a bad thing, as it allowed people to concentrate on story/dialogue etc. - much like most DMs don't want to have to create new rulesets but use pre-existing ones to tell their story.

However, it was massively limiting, and the amount of extra work we had to do in scripting to do something even a little different was annoying. We had to effectively write middlewares and tools just for other programmers and DMs to use. In NWN2 I wrote one universal persistent group quest engine script and it performed the role of about 10 scripts and an item/numerous NPC edits in NWN.

NWN2 was more like a real toolset - the world crafting was infinitely better, and the scripting gained very useful flexibility as well. That naturally took it away from being an adventure generator like the predecessor, and of course reduced the volume of mods (not to mention people didn't see a reason to stop playing NWN because it was still fun )

 

[DArtagnan]

The editor was not a mess. It was just more flexible.

Anyone could make a quality NWN mod because it was basically pre-fab. That's not a bad thing, as it allowed people to concentrate on story/dialogue etc. - much like most DMs don't want to have to create new rulesets but use pre-existing ones to tell their story.

However, it was massively limiting, and the amount of extra work we had to do in scripting to do something even a little different was annoying. We had to effectively write middlewares and tools just for other programmers and DMs to use. In NWN2 I wrote one universal persistent group quest engine script and it performed the role of about 10 scripts and an item/numerous NPC edits in NWN.

NWN2 was more like a real toolset - the world crafting was infinitely better, and the scripting gained very useful flexibility as well. That naturally took it away from being an adventure generator like the predecessor, and of course reduced the volume of mods (not to mention people didn't see a reason to stop playing NWN because it was still fun )

Lots of people complained about the added complexity - and the result was a massive reduction in quality mods. The brilliance of NWN was exactly the pre-fab nature of it - and NWN2 added complexity without properly taking into account what would happen with the excellent modding community. There's no reason you can't pre-fab more elaborate environments - but it would take additional work with the editor and the toolset in general.

But the biggest issue was their complete disregard for multiplayer in the main campaign and the MotB expansion. One of the best parts of NWN was playing MP in the campaign and the first expansion.

In fact, the entire concept of NWN was to bring PnP to computer as far as that was possible - and NWN2 just ignored that completely.

They took an engine designed specifically for cooperative multiplayer - and focused almost entirely on making a singleplayer experience.

Now, I know that lots of RPG fans are singleplayer exclusive - and as such, that was great for them. But for us who had great admiration for NWN and what it tried to do - it was a slap in the face. Can you appreciate that?

They probably expected people to build fantastic mods to compensate and implement multiplayer - but how could they do that without being accomplished artists and scripters? NWN worked because it DID NOT require that of the modding community. I'd take an evolved version of the pre-fab NWN nature over a "real editor" any time. We already have a ton of "real editors" where people with high level talent can go wild and create their own thing. What we needed was an evolution of the simplistic pre-fab editor.

Also, the UI was quite poor - and the engine had super poor optimisation. It's just so typical of Obsidian work. Deny it if you want - but that's the plain truth of it.

I wanted to love the game, I really did. I was fond of the main campaign - but I think it had so much more potential.

 

[joxer]

So we're to believe that Obsidian developed FO:NV without any assistance or documentation from Bethesda during development, and therefore all the bugs in that game are Bethesda's fault?

I don't think so.

You're 100% right as Bethesda's holy engine and games work without a glitch, and small annoyances are/were fixed in Bethesda games in the first patch/fix a day after the game release. As the engine is polished and documented better than development of the atomic bomb.

Noone expects you to worship blindly anything or anyone, but to oppose on the forum just everything and everyone even when you agree with the poster, to make things more interesting, sorry, but it's dartagnan's job.
Yea, lately he's not often here, I miss his "trolls".

 

[JDR13]

I obviously wasn't saying what you claim in the first part of your post, and I don't even understand what you're babbling about in the second part.

 

[Pessimeister]

Hmm. How did a thread on such a great topic, get derailed by such useless insubstantial bollocks? Ahh that's right, the usual contrarian nonsense. Predictable.

Obsidian gets a lot of ultra irrational love around here, and it's no surprise given they're among the very last serious "high-profile" RPG developers out there.

You might want to reconsider this oxy-moronic statement in the light of the fact that love in itself isn't exactly rational. You can state your case for something and endeavour to justify or explain it by all means, but don't try to act all high and mighty as if somehow your love for something was more rational than everyone elses.

 

[Thrasher]

Claims that Obsidian had all the support and resources needed to properly polish FO:NV and NWN 2 is just pure speculation. Period. Both engines are notoriously buggy. Hell, CDProject ripped out most of the aurora engine and rewrote it because it was causing so many problems.

 

[DArtagnan]

You might want to reconsider this oxy-moronic statement in the light of the fact that love in itself isn't exactly rational. You can state your case for something and endeavour to justify or explain it by all means, but don't try to act all high and mighty as if somehow your love for something was more rational than everyone elses.

There's nothing high and mighty by staying rational. I'd actually much prefer love - but for Obsidian - it's not working. It's not the sort of thing I choose myself.

I *LIKE* them, but that's about it.

Also, these things wouldn't go so far if people didn't form a mob and stupidly defend the indefensible.

Obsidian was never about polish or high-quality visuals - and that's really all I'm saying. Oh, I'm sure you can all agree that I'm "contrarian" because I state this - but it would be over much sooner if you just said: "Ok, that's actually true. I like what they do anyway."

Is that so hard?

 

[kalniel]

But the biggest issue was their complete disregard for multiplayer in the main campaign and the MotB expansion. One of the best parts of NWN was playing MP in the campaign and the first expansion.

In fact, the entire concept of NWN was to bring PnP to computer as far as that was possible - and NWN2 just ignored that completely.

They took an engine designed specifically for cooperative multiplayer - and focused almost entirely on making a singleplayer experience.

That was based on the reality of what players actually wanted. The original goal of NWN was to bring the PnP experience to computers, and as a small group campaign tool it was excellent. But the single player campaign was an afterthought and quite weak. And the vast majority of people who bought NWN were mainly interested in a single player campaign. And the vast majority of mods people made were single player adventures.

So what do you do for a sequel? You address the points of the original that the majority of players want fixed. That meant primarily concentrating on single player, and as a result, the single player campaign was way way better than NWN, and for single player modules of the type that were being created in NWN it was also vastly better.

NWN2 was also better for persistent worlds, as it happens, but that wasn't hard because NWN wasn't designed for them. But the barrier of entry was higher in terms of builder capability.

Now, I know that lots of RPG fans are singleplayer exclusive - and as such, that was great for them. But for us who had great admiration for NWN and what it tried to do - it was a slap in the face. Can you appreciate that?

I had a great admiration for NWN, but it wasn't a slap in the face at all. Remember it's only a minority of NWN players that were interested in multiplayer - and they shouldn't hold themselves as more important than the others.

Also, the UI was quite poor - and the engine had super poor optimisation. It's just so typical of Obsidian work. Deny it if you want - but that's the plain truth of it.

I'm not sure you can claim to speak for plain truth in such subjective matters. The engine was super spiffy - no other game at the time had such a complex fully dynamic lighting/shadowing system for example. And if you whacked up the settings then surprise surprise you needed a fast computer. I don't think developers should shackle the rest of us just because some people need their hands holding over what options they should enable. Same criticisms were levelled at games like Crysis and The Witcher 2. If you don't have the self-discipline to match your option choices to your power of computer then you shouldn't be playing PC games. RPGs shouldn't only be based on years old technology either.

 

[DArtagnan]

Claims that Obsidian had all the support and resources needed to properly polish FO:NV and NWN 2 is just pure speculation. Period. Both engines are notoriously buggy. Hell, CDProject ripped out most of the aurora engine and rewrote it because it was causing so many problems.

I'm not claiming that - I'm asking why you think they DIDN'T have that. After all, there must be a reason you brought it up. Except if that was just baseless speculation?

Lots of developers manage to use existing and established engines without releasing a mess 4 out of 4 times.

 

[DArtagnan]

That was based on the reality of what players actually wanted. The original goal of NWN was to bring the PnP experience to computers, and as a small group campaign tool it was excellent. But the single player campaign was an afterthought and quite weak. And the vast majority of people who bought NWN were mainly interested in a single player campaign. And the vast majority of mods people made were single player adventures.

Yes, but it would have been relatively trivial to implement proper cooperative gameplay in the main campaign. This was accomplished partially through mods within a few weeks.

There's no excuse not to have it - as the engine was fully prepared for it.

So what do you do for a sequel? You address the points of the original that the majority of players want fixed. That meant primarily concentrating on single player, and as a result, the single player campaign was way way better than NWN, and for single player modules of the type that were being created in NWN it was also vastly better.

Again, the singleplayer could have stayed fantastic with better MP support. I know what Obsidian did. What I would have done would be to improve singleplayer AND multiplayer.

I had a great admiration for NWN, but it wasn't a slap in the face at all. Remember it's only a minority of NWN players that were interested in multiplayer - and they shouldn't hold themselves as more important than the others.

It was a slap in the face for that minority, which was my point.

You don't sound like you have much admiration for what it tried to do at all, or you wouldn't be so casually dismissive of my problem with NWN2.

I'm not sure you can claim to speak for plain truth in such subjective matters. The engine was super spiffy - no other game at the time had such a complex fully dynamic lighting/shadowing system for example. And if you whacked up the settings then surprise surprise you needed a fast computer. I don't think developers should shackle the rest of us just because some people need their hands holding over what options they should enable. Same criticisms were levelled at games like Crysis and The Witcher 2. If you don't have the self-discipline to match your option choices to your power of computer then you shouldn't be playing PC games. RPGs shouldn't only be based on years old technology either.

Who can claim to speak plain truth? It ran like a dog even at medium settings - and it wasn't a subjective matter. I know a sluggish engine when I see one - and no amount of personal anecdotes will resolve this either way.

I know what I know - and if you really think it was "spiffy" then this is pointless.

You're making baseless assumptions about my rig. I always have high-end hardware - and there was absolutely no reason to believe I'd need that to run NWN2 reasonably well at medium settings, which I couldn't do upon release. It was optimised after a few patches, making it reasonably playable at mid-high settings - but the controls/UI remained incredibly sloppy. They still are without mods.

So, your point is invalid and speculative beyond the reasonable.

 

[JDR13]

Claims that Obsidian had all the support and resources needed to properly polish FO:NV and NWN 2 is just pure speculation. Period.

Yep, and it's intelligent speculation considering that Bethesda was the publisher and owns the rights to Fallout, and therefore would have had a personal interest in seeing that Obsidian had all the resources they needed to make a quality product.

 

[Thrasher]

But we're talking about professionals with full access to documentation and the people behind the engines.

How do you know the docs were sufficient? How do you know they got enough support from the NWN devs? You don't. You're making a lot of bad assumptions ignoring evidence to the contrary.

 

[kalniel]

Yes, but it would have been relatively trivial to implement proper cooperative gameplay in the main campaign. This was accomplished partially through mods within a few weeks.

There's no excuse not to have it - as the engine was fully prepared for it.

Do you think money grows on trees? Or that you can add game features at no additional cost or there wouldn't be any additional QA complexity in a multiplayer campaign? It's always a massive disappointment when gamers say 'it would be trivial to'....

Again, the singleplayer could have stayed fantastic with better MP support. I know what Obsidian did. What I would have done would be to improve singleplayer AND multiplayer.

Again the question about money.

You don't sound like you have much admiration for what it tried to do at all, or you wouldn't be so casually dismissive of my problem with NWN2.

I'm not casually dismissive of it at all - I think you typify the problem game developers face in that they can't please absolutely everyone to the same extent. It's a sad situation, but unless you are being funded by a government instead then you have to concentrate on providing what most of your market wants.

Again, I greatly admire what NWN tried to do, and I enjoyed it the most when I played it how it was designed. But the vast majority of people didn't like to play it that way.

Who can claim to speak plain truth? It ran like a dog even at medium settings - and it wasn't a subjective matter

I would correct that to 'it ran like a dog on your computer', but hey ho.

I know a sluggish engine when I see one

This is becoming ever more unsupportable/ridiculous

and no amount of personal anecdotes will resolve this either way.

But.. you.. just.. said.. ah never mind

 

[Thrasher]

Yep, and it's intelligent speculation considering that Bethesda was the publisher and owns the rights to Fallout, and therefore would have had a personal interest in seeing that Obsidian had all the resources they needed to make a quality product.

Well considering the laughably bugginess of Bethesdas own products, and their lack of interest in fixing them, I fail to see why anyone would think this reasoning is "intelligent".

 

[DArtagnan]

How do you know the docs were sufficient? How do you know they got enough support from the NWN devs? You don't. You're making a lot of bad assumptions ignoring evidence to the contrary.

I'm not saying it was sufficient - but that they had full access like anyone would have access to documentation when licensing an engine and tools/assets. Isn't that obvious?

Full != sufficient. Get it? Full = what's available.

Are you now trying to claim that full documentation was not made available to Obsidian and that they had to develop KotOR 2 for Lucasarts/Bioware without it because obviously LA/BW thought that'd be fun? For AP, the documentation for the Unreal engine was hidden from them? For NV, Bethesda didn't share their documentation?

Are you kidding, here? Or are you just being unreasonable on purpose.

 

[Thrasher]

Do you know what the word sufficient means?

That's the heart of my argument. Full documentation that's shitty for buggy code is terribly insufficient.

 

[DArtagnan]

Do you think money grows on trees? Or that you can add game features at no additional cost or there wouldn't be any additional QA complexity in a multiplayer campaign? It's always a massive disappointment when gamers say 'it would be trivial to'….

Ehm, what has money got to do with making cooperative gameplay a priority? I'm talking about priorities and if you played NWN2 with the coop mod, you'd realise that it was a relatively trivial matter to implement. Would it have cost something? Sure - but it would have been minimal.

Are you saying it would have been impossible without the singleplayer being bad as a result?

I'm not casually dismissive of it at all - I think you typify the problem game developers face in that they can't please absolutely everyone to the same extent. It's a sad situation, but unless you are being funded by a government instead then you have to concentrate on providing what most of your market wants.

I think you represent the irrational singleplayer desperation mindset, where every priority given to MP would ruin everything singleplayer. But we're talking about a sequel to a game with MP as the PRIMARY focus here, not the other way around.

I would correct that to 'it ran like a dog on your computer', but hey ho.

My high-end rig and many, many others according to the forums at the time. But hey ho.

This is becoming ever more unsupportable/ridiculous But.. you.. just.. said.. ah never mind

Agreed.