Obsidian Entertainment - South Park RPG Details

Dungeon Park Siege!

I like the sound of that
 
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Seriously? :mad:

I was starting to have a glimmer of hope after hearing that Parker and Stone were doing the writing, but I was really hoping they would be using something better than the DS3 engine.

Obsidian will be using the Onyx engine for their next few games, according to a tweet from Chris Avellone some time ago.

I'm not familiar with DS3 gameplay, but it was also used for their abandoned Aliens RPG.
 
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This trend towards 'humorous' CRPG's is kind of getting on my nerves. I'm old school in that I like enemies with rotting flesh and antagonist characters that aren't trying to do bad stand-up comedy. I understand trying to do something different, but enough with the 'funny' CRPG's.
 
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What trend?

Here's a few major/semi-major releases off the top of my head:
Deus Ex: HR
The Witcher 2
Skyrim
Dragon Age 2
Fallout: New Vegas
Mass Effect 2
Risen
Divinity 2
Dungeon Siege 3
Venetica

Serious RPGing there. A few jokes thrown in some of them, but nothing like a humorous rpg series.

You'll get your 'serious' rpgs, but I'm glad there are some not-so-serious RPGs on the market. There are hardly any good ones available with the exception of Frayed Knights. Maybe Borderlands as well, but that was just more silly. The focus of the game was combat.

I do not think I'll be glad about this one though. The writing could be great, but these details on the gameplay and combat have me worried.
 
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I think it's pretty safe to expect that hardcore RPG fans that expect a hardcore RPG will not find it in this one. Hardcore fans of anything are always ready to reject without a second thought anything that doesn't completely fit into a very specific mold and this game doesn't seem at all to be one that will even attempt to appeal to those people that keep expecting Obsidian to make another PS:T.

So far this is only relevant news to those who like the idea of taking part in a South Park story. The rest should probably not maintain any expectations because you will most likely be disappointed.
 
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Obsidian will be using the Onyx engine for their next few games, according to a tweet from Chris Avellone some time ago.

I'm not familiar with DS3 gameplay, but it was also used for their abandoned Aliens RPG.

They pretty much created the Onyx engine so as to not to have to have to rely on external engines, so yeah you can pretty much expect most upcoming Obsidian to use the Onyx engine.

I'm not sure what's the issue here, I thought the Onyx engine looked great on Dungeon Siege III personally. If anything this South Park RPG should be a good way to see the versatility of the engine :p

-Sergorn
 
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I'm with Skavonhorde with that.
For me, personally, there's far too much of the blood/dark/gritty RPGs already out there - that's why I'm more and more turning towards adventure games.
And I'm only watching humorous animated movies in the cinema, too.

To me it's like he comment of a Germn Star Wars fan after the season 4 trailer of The CLone Wars, wherin he actually wrote that The Clone Wars HAD to be bloody and gritty ! It almost sounded to me as if he had fun watching movies in which blood flows, limbs are chopped off and real dirt is everywhere.
What he failed to see is that The Clone Wars was originally a Kid's series ! Not one for military fanatists !
 
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Chaos, I highly doubt it will be a failure, at least from a financial standpoint. The reason Obsidian said that this was a project they couldn't turn down is because they are aware of just how big South Park's following is. They have a nice-sized group of hardcore followers that never miss the show when it airs and a legion of more casual followers that will watch it when it happens to be on TV or when it is convenient for them. Plus, Matt and Trey are riding a wave of grammy nominations and numerous Tony awards from the Book of Mormon. I would say the game may not be a critical success, but I see very little stopping it from being a commercial success.

I watch every episode, thanks to DVR, and consider myself an "average" fan. But based on what I said earlier (they haven't been funny in almost 2 seasons now, movie sucked, etc) I have ZERO interest in playing this game.

I just wonder how many fans are 'hardcore' enough to want to pony up what will likely be 60 bucks to get a chuckle here and there listening to the same old jokes? Maybe this game had a chance 5 years ago, but South Park is dying AFAIC. Sure they still have ratings, but eventually folks will figure out it's already been as good as it gets.
 
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At first glance, I thought this had to be a joke, but on second thoughts…

-There are five classes, which are wizard, paladin, adventurer, rogue, and a fifth unannounced class.
-The humor will be more focus on the games they have played in the past but Parker mentions that games have lampooned other games before so they don't want to do exactly that instead they are focusing more on RPG's on how big and bombastic they can get sometimes.
so their intentionally using generic classes…
parody episodes of lord of the rings/warcraft/facebook/tron.
This could actually work assuming a completely generic skill trees, and items that alter the effects based on the character loot (ie wizard magic missile = paper airplane in school = fireball in fantasy parody quest = …)

-The player will play as the new kid in town, the main theme of the game is fitting in and being accepted.
so multiple factions to work with, where working with one prevents doing quest from others (ie jocks, goths, cheerleaders, nerds, …)

-If player initiates combat they will attack first and vice versa.
-X button is for melee attacks, pressing it in well-timed succession will result in multiple hits.
-Obsidian doesn't want the player to have to sit and watch animations play out; they're incorporating dynamic camera angels at certain times, such as a Ro Sham Bo attack that stuns an enemy.
Turn-based combat, with no unskippable slow-motion kill animations

Obsidian is using the Dungeon Siege III engine.
They're using the engine they built themselves and used in the least buggy of their games.

Assuming obsidian's usual standard of writing + minimal bugs + multiple factions/questlines + turn-based combat …
If this was the usual high fantasy rpg, they'd be giving us exactly what we been begging for in a while.
Assuming they pull something equivalent to kreia's take on the force in kotor2, this could actually be an interesting game/thoughtful take on social interactions.

That is provided their offices don't get firebombed because of

-There is a Summon System but they are not able to talk about it
.
I read this as the summons are likely to feature pedobear, seaman, hippy Jesus and masked Mohammed, hence why they're not talking about it.

or sued out of existence by the cult of Scientology, for …
 
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I was thinking that SP RPG could be a fresh experience - if nothing goes wrong, off course - but then I stumbled upon this:
-Obsidian is using the Dungeon Siege III engine.
Oh, crap. I'm not going to touch this game.
 
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I was thinking that SP RPG could be a fresh experience - if nothing goes wrong, off course - but then I stumbled upon this:

Oh, crap. I'm not going to touch this game.

Why that? Obsidian never had a better engine to work with. What else did they have?

Gamebryo Bethesda style - urgh. Unreal 3 Bioware style - bah. Aurora gone Electron - don't get me even started.
 
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Why that?
My carpal tunnel says no. And when your carpal tunnel is talking to you, no means NO.
Gamebryo Bethesda style - urgh. Unreal 3 Bioware style - bah. Aurora gone Electron - don't get me even started.
I think when people complain about these game, they are complaining about the graphics and artistic style. I don't have a problem with Onyx engine's graphics or artistic style. I like it. But DS3 featured a poor and unnatural control scheme. PC gamers who use a mouse and keyboard to play DS3 (and Southpark, I suspect) are constantly at risk of damaging their own body -permanently- by playing a stupid button-masher.
I will wait to see the game in action, but I'm not gonna go anywhere near it as long as I'm not 100% confident that it uses a better control scheme than that of DS3.
 
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The control scheme in DS3 was completely a production choice, not a limitation of the engine. Obviously I know nothing about this South Park game and it may well suck but the controls aren't linked to DS3 in any meaningful way.
 
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Yeah seriously people, an engine is basically just a versatile tool than can be used for a variety of games, UI, controls and whatelse.

Juste look at the UE3: it's been used for FPS, TPS, RPGs, JRPGs, RTS, Action/Adventure, Beat'em alls, Fighting games, survival horror and probably other stuff I'm forgetting about. Point is: it's all over the place and has pretty much been used for all kind of games, with all kind of gameplay, UI and whatever.

Eck just look at Gamebryo too, sure it's Oblivion engine - but it was also the engine for Sid Meier's Pirates and Civilization IV!

Need I say more really?

Expecting South Park will have a crappy control system (note: it might who knows?) on account that it uses the same engine as DSIII is ludicrous really.

The only thing with South Park using the Onyx engine is that we can be hopeful that's it's gonna be a stable and hopefully bugfree game based on DSIII's record in that record. Nothing more can really be thought out from the engine choice.

-Sergorn
 
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Still cannot believe this is for real. South Park RPG? By Obsidian?! WTF?!!

Either I ate too many space mushrooms and am now in some alternate reality trip or the Obsidian guys did when they decided to do this. Mind boggles.
 
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I still can't believe it.

And I probably most likely won't during the next 2-3 weeks either.
 
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Uh … err … yes, that's right, of course …

Of course they might still rename it into "South Park Dragon Siege" …
 
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