Obsidian Entertainment - About the Cancelled Stormlands

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Spaceman
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Eurogamer tells us about Obsidians cancelled Stormlands project.

...

"We were given a proposal, the million-man raid," Obsidian co-owner and CEO, Feargus Urquhart, tells me. "Conceptually what came from Microsoft was this idea: imagine you're playing The Witcher, maybe with a friend. What happens if at points in time a giant creature pops up that you can see in the distance and it's not just popping up while you're playing, it's popping up for everybody who's playing. You all rush this creature and there's this haze around it, and as you're all rushing through the haze the game is matchmaking you into 40-man raids who are going to fight the creature.

"Then you fight it, but while the creature is being fought all the footage is being recorded up into the cloud. Then at the end we would come up with some kind of intelligent editing thing which would deliver everybody who fought a personalised, edited video of their participation in the raid. That is what was proposed to us."


"Microsoft's ambition," says fellow owner Chris Parker, vice president of development, "was to do a lot of things and do it very new. Nothing that was standard or typically accepted in video games should be taken as acceptable. It was always, 'Try to get it up to the next level, try and figure out something different or some new way to approach it or put a different spin on it.' Every feature it was, 'How do we change this feature to make it better than it has ever been before?

[...]
More information.
 
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Yeah, I agree. It really does sound horrid. 40-man raids and Witcher combat? No thanks…

Edit: interesting article though. I didn't know anything about this.
 
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Yes, use (i.e. rely on) Microsoft, state-of-the-art, online technology/solution - so that it becomes standard and everyone 'needs' to buy and use in the future! The future is bright, the future is Micro$oft.
 
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Yet another MMO got cancelled?
Good riddance.
 
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Too much of a gamble and too focussed on the technicals. I can't see anyone being able to pull this off.

A larger company like EA would could hash this around and spend millions on this for years before finally giving up but Obsidian would make a start before running into challenges they were unable to overcome.

Witcher is just a buzzword - but basically its - let's take this game we like and see if we can make it a MMOG. The brass is pushing for more multiplayer and more twitch video for viral marketing.
 
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It would have been another "RPG" where flashy combat and epeen is the focus. Idea by people who have no idea what a RPG is about. Glad it never came to be!
 
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Forty random people/scrubs showing up for a raid just wouldn't end well. Except for the target, which probably would have increased their level off the fools that showed up!
 
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From the looks of it, could swear I'm looking at DS III ( even similar haircut for main character, can't be coincidence). Which didn't really had that bad of a combat, but too simple for what it was.
But man, seems Avellone undercuffed when he spoke about their management...seems Obs'll grab any project thrown their way, regardless of conditions/their own expertize.
How many has it been by now?, can't think of anyone with same streak.
 
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That ominous line at the end: Microsoft is looking...to buy them? If they want to keep up with Sony, they need strong(er) first party studios.
And it wouldn't be a bad idea; Obs's got a name and experience, but are horribly managed, this would balance things a bit ( hehe).
If they scale down ( around 200 or so people last time I was there) and focus a bit, Microsoft is the likeli-est prospect.
 
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It would be a disaster.
Microsoft operates like EA, for example they made sure noone remembers Ensemble Studios.
 
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Let me set the scene: A bunch of pasty game designers and wannabe junior project managers sitting around, high on Red Bull and Cheetos, trying to outdo each other with stupid game play ideas that they can pawn off on gullible console owners.

No thanks.
 
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Looks like that new game will be revealed next week.

Currently, however, Obsidian's hands are full, the 175-person studio occupied across four and a half projects: the Tyranny expansion, Pillars of Eternity 2, a small Pathfinder card game, a small idea the studio is "spinning up" and a considerable something else. And I'll tell you a bit more about that next week as well.
 
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