Obsidian Does it Again

[The Madman]

Nope.. I didn't gloss over anything, I read it, but only had something to say about the part I commented on... my feelings about the rest are quite clear...

The 'your loss' part sounded a bit high and mighty (not overly so.. just enough to prompt a comment)

As for what you say about NWN2.. the OC is bad enough (for me anyway) to regret the waste of money, but that's not really the issue.. and certainly not the main part of most people's disappointment, nay, anger at the product... it's the buggy broken mess it was out of the box... and the two expansions it took to fix the blasted thing, that's the real issue.

It's been agreed here that Ob are capable of good storytellling and original thought... but it's also agreed that they cannot, with any satisfaction, execute those high ideals.. and any attempts to do so are laughable from a quality point of view.

Kinda like me trying to read a very good book, but a few important the pages are missing and some of it's written in Chinese.... It's hard to enjoy the storytelling when you have to wade through a lot of crap just to get to it.

You make it sound like NWN2 was completely unplayable when it was released and that it's widely hated, yet the game received agreeable reviews (82% on metacritic for example) and sold well enough to warrant two expansions and boast a thriving mod community. Personally while I found the game buggy to be certain, there was nothing game-breaking which I experienced and I rather enjoyed the campaign. True it wasn't fantastic and I wont pretend otherwise, but it was also far from the abomination you seem to be portraying NWN2 as.

So while I'm not trying to sound high and mighty... well, it IS your loss that you allowed an unfavorable first impression to color your thoughts on the entire franchise from that point forward. I really enjoyed Mask of the Betrayer and consider it to be the high-point of the entire NWN series in terms of singleplayer, and the mod community for NWN2 is fantastic. While there's not as large a library of mods for NWN2 as there are for NWN, many that have been released are of amazing quality and easily stand as miniature expansions in their own rights. Misery Stone for example is probably one of the highest quality and best fan-made campaigns for *any* rpg I've ever seen.

And again, as I stated in my initial post, I think it's a pity that both Shamus and yourself have never gotten to experience that. I really don't understand why you're up in arms over that statement! I've had a lot of fun with NWN2 since its release, both through expansions and fan content. Is it wrong I wish others could enjoy the game as much as I have?

 

[cystemic]

ive done about 13 hours on my copy on ps3, it hasnt crashed yet but i still save every time i walk 3 steps in case it does . awesome game so far

 

[JourneyThroughHell]

Yeah, I don't mind Obsidian as a developer, but I've just this second remembered that New Vegas, a game that's being hauled as the most buggy thing ever, is their work.

Sorry about that slot machine, Shamus.

Also, Alpha Protocol shouldn't even be in the same sentence with "polished", so they're 4 for 4.

 

[Abedeus]

Excuse me, one correction about NwN 2 - people didn't blame Atari. They blamed Obsidian. Atari was with Neverwinter Nights when it belonged to Bioware and that didn't affect the game - it was pure gold with chocolate sprinkles on it.

Obsidian simply doesn't know how to make sequels.

 

[Fumbleumble]

Nope.. I didn't gloss over anything, I read it, but only had something to say about the part I commented on... my feelings about the rest are quite clear...

The 'your loss' part sounded a bit high and mighty (not overly so.. just enough to prompt a comment)

As for what you say about NWN2.. the OC is bad enough (for me anyway) to regret the waste of money, but that's not really the issue.. and certainly not the main part of most people's disappointment, nay, anger at the product... it's the buggy broken mess it was out of the box... and the two expansions it took to fix the blasted thing, that's the real issue.

It's been agreed here that Ob are capable of good storytellling and original thought... but it's also agreed that they cannot, with any satisfaction, execute those high ideals.. and any attempts to do so are laughable from a quality point of view.

Kinda like me trying to read a very good book, but a few important the pages are missing and some of it's written in Chinese.... It's hard to enjoy the storytelling when you have to wade through a lot of crap just to get to it.

You make it sound like NWN2 was completely unplayable when it was released and that it's widely hated, yet the game received agreeable reviews (82% on metacritic for example) and sold well enough to warrant two expansions and boast a thriving mod community. Personally while I found the game buggy to be certain, there was nothing game-breaking which I experienced and I rather enjoyed the campaign. True it wasn't fantastic and I wont pretend otherwise, but it was also far from the abomination you seem to be portraying NWN2 as.

So while I'm not trying to sound high and mighty... well, it IS your loss that you allowed an unfavorable first impression to color your thoughts on the entire franchise from that point forward. I really enjoyed Mask of the Betrayer and consider it to be the high-point of the entire NWN series in terms of singleplayer, and the mod community for NWN2 is fantastic. While there's not as large a library of mods for NWN2 as there are for NWN, many that have been released are of amazing quality and easily stand as miniature expansions in their own rights. Misery Stone for example is probably one of the highest quality and best fan-made campaigns for *any* rpg I've ever seen.

And again, as I stated in my initial post, I think it's a pity that both Shamus and yourself have never gotten to experience that. I really don't understand why you're up in arms over that statement! I've had a lot of fun with NWN2 since its release, both through expansions and fan content. Is it wrong I wish others could enjoy the game as much as I have?

NWN2 WAS pretty much completely unplayable out of the box.. the engine issues were absolutely horrendous, the system requirements for the game (the REAL ones, not the BS Ob fed us) were UTTERLY unreasonable for the actual state of the graphics and the less we say about broken ruleset the better (did they ever get around to fixing the high dex build for Warlock? I know it wasn't fixed for the first expansion).. and amongst fans of the first, which was a pretty big fan base.. it WAS universally derided and hated..there was a very vocal minority who were willing to accept the game for the mess that it was.. but most were absolutely disgusted by it and at the time stayed with NWN1... and as for ANY critic website... they are a mixture of wildly inaccurate, sometime spot on, but wholly unreliable.. even so far as players site go (and it's all just opinion anyway).. lovers will love.. but haters tend to move on to something else.. not always, but it can be accepted as a rule of thumb.... you thought it was acceptable, I thought it was a hideous unplayable mess.. I guess we can both find someone who will agree with our mutually exclusive points of view.

As for any expansions.. from MY personal point of view, they could have been the best thing since sliced bread.. but Ob don't deserve penny one, from further expanded sales because of the aborted mess of the first one I shelled out for and was only fixed by shelling out more... no stand alone updated content patches for this product.. unlike those I can get got the original NWN... and as long as you raise the issue... Obsidian don't deserve an iota of credit for their community.. not one jot.... in fact if anything, the community deserves the credit for giving the game the shelflife that it had.

Well I CERTAINLY don't speak for Shamus.. but from my own point of view.. it all comes down to bang for my buck.. and allowing myself to be duped a couple of times by Obsidian's quite unworthy effort.. I believed in them enough to fork out for two of their (Obsidians) products (I learn quickly) and watched the explosions over the rest.. and nothing has ever dissuaded me from the opinion that Ob's products simply aren't worthy of their hype or the money... and believe me.. I've put the money that I WOULD have spent (had they been a developer of any worth, because I like the sound of their games, just not the piss poor quality) to far better use on something that I have enjoyed.. so on balance.. no enjoyment lost.

( I really have to sleep now, and that's a pity because I'm really enjoying this thread.. I'll be back later.... night night, or morning, morning rather :/)

 

[Rack]

Fool me once, shame on you, fool me 4 or more times, shame on me. I love Obsidian, I love their ambition and their willingness to push the medium. And anyone who loves RPGs and skipped MOTB is a fool. But I would never ever buy an Obsidian game at launch.

 

[pacati]

I had this "wipe all your saves" bug happen with Fallout 3. It destroyed them utterly, no backups. I lost my entire game that I'd put god knows how many hours into and had to start over from scratch.

Given that, I would have GLADLY only had to go back 3 hours. I'd imagine this game save backup feature was to combat the bug in the engine from Fallout 3.

 

[Cade the Imperfect]

The release and patch later idea of game development is crap, and releasing broken games like this is just beyond unacceptable. I agree with this article completely

 

[Zer0Saber]

I had no idea about the bugs when i started playing it for my PS3, until I started checking for the game online, I'm 15 hours in with no problems, but with everything I'm hearing, I'm getting super paranoid that something bad will happen.

 

[Loonerinoes]

By now I'm used to buying Obsidian games not with the typical mentality of someone who 'pays good money for something' (in other words having the words "IMPRESS me ************!" etched to the inside of my skull), but rather as an experience.

An experience in which I not only get to go through an interesting story and plot (and you know what...KOTOR 2 had one of the best endings, even before the restoration patch its content blew me away since I had not seen anything like it in Star Wars before) but I also get to re-explore the insides of my PC as well as tweak both its hardware and software settings to overcome the challenge of running the game properly.

It's an acquired taste, I know, and not one to be approached with the mentality that if you pay for something you deserve all the best in the world for having SUFFERED so much for that money (ironically I consider this to be an overblown sense of entitlement similarly as many 'hard working customers' consider all pirates to all automatically have one as well). But it's an experience nonetheless.

Though yes...I think that by now it's official - releasing games with very lousy QA has now pretty much become the classic standard for Obsidian. Ouchie!

 

[Danish rage]

Pc gaming is useless overkill. Buying a pc today you are asking for trouble.

You might not get top of the line grapich with a console, but at least it works. Im yet to have a crash or glitch 10 hours in.

The Pc gaming community is responsible for the decline of good games, demanding that every singel AAA game is to be released for PC and about a trillion different grapich/ram/prosessor setups. You Guys are sucking the fun out of games with you grapich fetish.

 

[Amphoteric]

The unofficial New Vegas patch should be out soon.

 

[Amphoteric]

Pc gaming is useless overkill. Buying a pc today you are asking for trouble.

You might not get top of the line grapich with a console, but at least it works. Im yet to have a crash or glitch 10 hours in.

The Pc gaming community is responsible for the decline of good games, demanding that every singel AAA game is to be released for PC and about a trillion different grapich/ram/prosessor setups. You Guys are sucking the fun out of games with you grapich fetish.

Mabye go troll somewhere else.

 

[Danish rage]

Pc gaming is useless overkill. Buying a pc today you are asking for trouble.

You might not get top of the line grapich with a console, but at least it works. Im yet to have a crash or glitch 10 hours in.

The Pc gaming community is responsible for the decline of good games, demanding that every singel AAA game is to be released for PC and about a trillion different grapich/ram/prosessor setups. You Guys are sucking the fun out of games with you grapich fetish.

Mabye go troll somewhere else.

maybe learn to live with oppinions not your own.

 

[Danish rage]

Experienced Points: Obsidian Does it Again

Did Obsidian even test Fallout: New Vegas before releasing it?

Read Full Article

This is a pretty shameful article right here. You're only partially correct about a few things, and completely wrong about several.

KotOR2 was rushed because of the publisher breathing down their neck. It was a decent game up to about 3/4 of the way through.

NWN2 is a fine game, nothing wrong with it. Yes it's poor in places and has some obvious flaws, and yes it requires a monster PC considering what's onscreen, but it's still one of the best D&D games out there. Furthermore, the expansion packs are EXCELLENT. Mask is one of the best games I've ever played - it's right up there with BG2. Zehir is not quite as good but still great. Your stubborn refusal to play them is quite shameful PC elitist behaviour.

AP is crap, no argument there.

Now to FONV, I think you probably don't understand the way games are released. The publisher insists on a very strict timeframe for release, the game was probably put to disc the INSTANT it was deemed ready BY THE PUBLISHERS. The devs have likely known about the bugs since that point, and have been working around the clock since then to release a day-one patch. Obsidian being obsidian, it turned into a day-four patch or whatever, but hey. (Although it was day-one for me, in Europe. But that's no excuse)

Day One patches allow the publisher to force games to be released much earlier than they SHOULD be released. And this is the fault of the PUBLISHER, not the devs. This is the industry standard, now. It's not a matter of how long will it take to kill all the bugs. It's a matter of how many serious bugs do we iron out before putting the game to release and killing the rest of the bugs with a day-one patch.

Now anyone can see that Day One patches are crappy, that's easy. But bitching at the devs is pointless. These days, it's all about the money. And Day One patches save money for publishers. Simple.

Pc gaming is useless overkill. Buying a pc today you are asking for trouble.

You might not get top of the line grapich with a console, but at least it works. Im yet to have a crash or glitch 10 hours in.

The Pc gaming community is responsible for the decline of good games, demanding that every singel AAA game is to be released for PC and about a trillion different grapich/ram/prosessor setups. You Guys are sucking the fun out of games with you grapich fetish.

You must be joking.

Nope.

 

[Casimir_Effect]

Snip

Yep, fair enough.. I'll take it as read you are correct... just something I was 'remembering'

Drakensang is a fully fledged old school RPG with some really nice scripted quests, a nice engine (with the single most imaginative area I've seen in a game.. you can't miss it, it's gorgeous) and the system has all the depth of the Mirny Diamond Mine (google an image).. comparable with D&D 2nd ed (i.e, you gotta be able to count)... Divinty 2 Ego Draconis is also a good rpg has it's issues but it's certainly eminently playable and enjoyable... steer clear of Arcania.. it's piss poor... Risen is OK-ish.. but mainly shouted about by Gothic fans (good games, nice story and such.. but the combat is arse.. and G3 is 'almost' an unplayable mess ), it certainly has it's own issues. Dragon Age also is 'ok' in flat kind of way (pure opinion...it's kinda shiney in a cinematic kinda of way...caters too much to angsty teens.. wayyyy too much blood and the sex is pointless (as I feel it is in every game).. this was the main complaint I had about The Witcher..yes it's supposed to be 'adult', but it always just comes off as being a bit of (lame) tittilation for spotty tweens :/) and Mass effect 1..which was quite good in a simplified sort of way (compared to Biowares older stuff)..the second was just too simple and naught but a shooter at the end of the day (again opinion).

Those are some of the most recent examples... but tbh I prefer older rpgs which seemed to be more about gameplay, story and system as opposed to eye candy.. I can recommend a few of my older favs if you so wish.... but to start with, if I were you I definately grab a copy of Drakensang and/or Div 2 (preferrably Drakensang... careful of the learning curve )

Thanks for the RPG list, but I was actually looking more for a list of games which Drakensang could be compared to as a point of reference. I too come from the good semi-old days of RPG and count the Infinity Engine one's as all-time favourites. So happy that GoG recently put up BG, PS: T, Temple of Elemental Evil and Icewind Dale.

Heard Arcania was bad, apparently it lacks anything resembling immersion and is just like a single-player MMO. Risen is the real Gothic 4 to my mind, but seeing as I've never played a Gothic game that wouldn't mean much to me. Gothic 1 & 2 always look too dull, Gothic 3 is apparently broken as hell unless you mod it (and dull as well), and Risen has just never appealed.

I must admit I enjoyed Dragon Age even if it's just so damn conventional. It's like a fantasy novel by Feist or Salvatore - short, samey, but addictive and fun to read. There were no design surprises and not enough complexity for me to truly love it though. Mass Effect was slightly more fun simply down to the setting being different, and the combat being better than DAs (not hard). But I think playing The Witcher first meant DA was screwed from the start, unless it was fantastic. The Witcher did the gritty fantasy world thing better, and I always enjoy playing a protagonist defined for me as then the game talks to you more. So long as I can define the characters skills and class I'm fine. Who cares about hair style, skull size, jaw-line, eye width etc?

Divinity 2 I came close to checking out this week, then saw there's a new edition coming out next year with updated graphics and extra stuff. Check it out if you haven't heard http://www.flamesofvengeance.com/.

 

[ChupathingyX]

I've clocked up more than ten hours of gameplay and so far I've only encountere a very small amount of glitches, none of which hindered me in any way. Seriously why is it that reviewers and journalists are the ones that encounter the most bugs?

Oh well, I'm greatly enjoying the game and I have no regret in buying New Vegas. It's better than Fallout 3 in every way, and Fallout 3 had a lot of bugs too so for me at least New Vegas is better in that respect too.

Also remember Obsidian weren't given that much time to make this game. Plus Bethesda have always had a crappy, bug infested engine, so that's also not Obsidian's fault. Obsidian weren't given a long time to test out bugs, plus it's a huge world, with so many different things to test. All the characters voicelogs, all weapons, all weapons tested on every enemy in different ways, from different angles. Having to run into every rock, corner, chair and vending machine to make sure they don't have major clipping issues or areas where you can get out of the map. You have to take all this stuff into consideration.

 

[kouriichi]

I havent had a single problem with my copy.
Ive played it almost 25 hours in total since i got it, and i havent hit a single bug.

Well none that were game breaking anyway. :/ Maybe the occassional creature halfway through the ground, or a random game crash every few hours, but im still having a ball.

 

[SG Xibalba]

Get a console.

LOLZ

 

[Scarecrow]

There's already a patch for the game. Besides, it works awesome for me. Stop this, you are being silly.

yeah, the game is great I have had no problems what so ever.