Obsidian Mailbag

[I_am_acting]

if you ask me, solely blaming Obsidian is retarded, after all they don't have as big a dev. team as other companies, they had 2 projects that had to work on at the time, using not only unfamiliar tools but a buggy engine to boot, it's just silly if you ask me to solely blame them

Then why is BioWare able to release stable games, even when dealing with those same publishers that allegedly ruined Obsidian's work? Why do other developers working with (say) Atari not have the same problems that Obsidian did?

When a project is begun the developer agrees to a given timetable and budget. "We'll make X game in Y months using Z dollars." A contract outlines these obligations, and they sign it. Every one of their games has come from a different publisher, for a different franchise, using different tools. The only common element in all of the buggy Obsidian games is Obsidian Entertainment itself. They have failed to deliver a stable game four out of four times now (discounting the expansion packs, which were reportedly good) and so I think it's time the blame fell on the people doing the over-promising and under-delivering.

reputation helps at the bargaining table when negotiating contracts with publishers, bioware has nearly always shitted out gold for people, obsidian's first couple of contracts didn't really get them a good reputation so publishers aren't exactly willing to put the same amount of resources behind obsidian then they would behind bioware (or another dev. of similar caliber)

at any rate, Obsidian is improving it's act so it's not like it's ignoring this problem

 

[pinchy]

Good joke Shamus. Bioware, stable. Pfffffff.....

So true. I love Bioware's games but they always cause me nothing but trouble. Mass Effect has just decided to give up the ghost and crash every five minutes on me making it unplayable (and even when it did there was some really ugly graphical problems with black boxes appearing over barrels and so forth).

Dragon Age leaked memory like a sieve (which they did improve but not until I'd suffered through my first complete playtrhough) and still loves to come up with stupid and incomprehensible bugs (just yesterday I decided to take a second character through Awakening and somehow managed to get ported from the courtyard of the keep onto the top of the tower to start the boss fight- had Oghren and the mage whose name I can't remember appear invisible during the following cutscene and disappear afterwards seeing I'd never had the chance to recruit them- not a major issue only half an hour or so in but annoying nonetheless).

If Bioware is an example of a developer who makes stable games then we as gamers really need to up our expectations- they're still nowhere near as bad as Obsidian, but certainly aren't a company to hold up as a paragon in this area.

 

[Knight Templar]

You mention Fallout 3, in my experience it was completely functional, on the gameplay side of things. Which is not to say to was the best thing ever, it was just functional. Quests didn't die off randomly and such.

 

[TraderJimmy]

This only edifies one of the most prominent arguments against PC gaming. The substantial diversification in PC hardware ensures that developers have a difficult time developing games which will adequately run. You'll have a game which has a particular error with one graphics card and runs smooth as butter on another graphics card.

Edifies means informing someone in a sort of 'character-building' or 'moral' way.

Wait here, I'll google for an example...tum te tum...

Here, "Knowledge puffs up but love edifies." from Corinthians.

I couldn't find an irreligious example, it appears it has religious connotations as well

I don't think it fits here. And when one person uses a word wrong it kinda tends to spread, so I tend to pedant about it if I think they won't mind too much.

Hope you don't!

OT: Strange that people leap to the defence of a game like that. Bugs are a major issue. Titan Quest, the PC version of Juiced, really PISSED ME OFF with their constant CTD's. It's not something you can just ignore.

 

[MadGodXero]

Flamers will be flamers, sad though, you'd think society would grow up........back to Minecraft and calling people inappropriate names =]

 

[Andy of Comix Inc]

Also one reason why I won't defend them is that the "Gamebryo" engine has been around for three games now. Oblivion, Fallout 3, and New Vegas have all suffered pretty buggy releases, and truthfully by the third game I would have expected a pretty clean game. The only thing I can think of is that Bethesda just handed them the engine and didn't give them any information on how to use it or kill the bugs they found, and that compounded with the fact that Obsidian was building a deeper game which compounded the bugs.

Gamebryo is an off-the-shelf programming engine, not a Bethesda engine... http://www.emergent.net/en/Clients--Titles/

 

[Woodsey]

"A college freshman playing New Vegas right now would have been thirteen years old when Obsidian released KOTOR II."

Hey, I was 9 when I played it and I knew Obsidian made it. Evidently you're just being biased and your computer is so rubbish you had to skip the splash screens so your computer could run the game!

This only edifies one of the most prominent arguments against PC gaming. The substantial diversification in PC hardware ensures that developers have a difficult time developing games which will adequately run. You'll have a game which has a particular error with one graphics card and runs smooth as butter on another graphics card.

I've seen just as many complaints about bugs on the consoles too (assuming that's what you're getting at when you say "error" in this instance), and other developers have no trouble getting their games running fine on the very vast majority of machines.

 

[bjj hero]

If people stopped buying these unfinished products Obsidian throw out, another developer might get chance and we might get finished games.

 

[steverivers]

Completely agree with you, Shamus. I promised myself after KOTOR 2 i wouldn't buy an obsidian game again.

I would say i feel bad about caving in, but because i live in Europe, and we got New Vegas a good few days (and a patch) later than the US, ive not experienced any of the major bugs. But ive still encountered a good two or three.


Its just a sad fact that there are folks out there today who think you're not allowed to say anything bad about something without "balancing it out". Its complete rubbish from people who are fanboys in all but name in my opinion.

If a car is faulty - you take it back. If a toaster you were sold comes without a basic knob to set the timer, its disgusting manufacturing.

When its a computer game? Oh screw it, we can always patch it later, and we know there are people who'll shout at folks who complain at us screwing them over anyhow.


Obsidian have an awful track record in this area. People need to learn that when you pay for something, you expect it to work. And those that knock you for pointing that out are really asking for standards to get so low that we'll end up cheering game manufacturers for producing games that you cant complete.

Thats why its important to lambast Obsidian for crappy standards.

It's forgivable once,... twice is iffy... But three to four times? They are basically slapping you in the face, laughing, and asking you to pay them each time.

 

[Ewyx]

Well... I guess can't love EVERYTHING Shamus writes.

 

[Eclectic Dreck]

I didn't experience any of the "problems" you supposedly had. The game ran great for me!

So... are the rest of us lying? Are these thousands of irritated gamers part of some vast conspiracy to make Obsidian look bad, just because?

As I said last week, PC hardware is a complex business and I'm sympathetic to the effort it takes to get things running on all of those different machines. If you're not one of the affected people, then rejoice and enjoy your game. But if you want me to enjoy the game then you need to mail me your computer, because it doesn't work right on this one.

I love you right now Shamus. I hate that "it worked fine for me!" crap when you discuss problems with games, as if I'm supposed to say "Okay, I am no longer annoyed that it's not working for me" when people say it worked for them.

While I cannot speak for everyone who might have said something to that effect, I think my own position is entirely easy to understand.

Shamus pointed out that he was annoyed that the game was "broken" for him. Others pointed out that they played the game without experiencing the same thing.

How that implies, even for a moment, that I think Shamus is lying is beyond me. In much the same fashion that my experience does nothing to invalidate Shamus' experience, his own experience does nothing to invalidate mine.

And, yet, when addressing this very common topic, he chooses to assemble a straw man argument? I hardly condone such a thing.

I completely believe that Shamus has had problems. I also believe others have had problems. I would even go so far as to agree that, in many cases, the problems people are having are inexcusable simply because the same problem existed in Fallout 3. For example, why do I have the option to turn off the cinematic death animations if, all that does, is make the game break the moment I use VATS? That's a bug from the first game for god's sake!

But, just because I believe Shamus and even agree with his assertion, doesn't mean my own assertion that I didn't have a problem (until I decided to try turning off the Cinematic camera that is) was invalid. Thousands of people saying they had a problem is no better proof of the existence of a problem than thousands of people saying that they didn't after all.

 

[CharlesA]

True, the game is buggy and can be really frustrating, but I just don't get the whole vindictive tone. Why hate Obsidian? At least they're trying to make good, huge games. Even if NV crashed on me, I would still have gotten far more pleasure for much longer with it than with any other game since, well, Fallout 3.

They did release it unfinished, that's a failure, but I must say I don't really mind.

 

[Throwitawaynow]

I didn't experience any of the "problems" you supposedly had. The game ran great for me!

So... are the rest of us lying? Are these thousands of irritated gamers part of some vast conspiracy to make Obsidian look bad, just because?

As I said last week, PC hardware is a complex business and I'm sympathetic to the effort it takes to get things running on all of those different machines. If you're not one of the affected people, then rejoice and enjoy your game. But if you want me to enjoy the game then you need to mail me your computer, because it doesn't work right on this one.

I love you right now Shamus. I hate that "it worked fine for me!" crap when you discuss problems with games, as if I'm supposed to say "Okay, I am no longer annoyed that it's not working for me" when people say it worked for them.

Actually it's more to the point of if it is woking perfectly for other people, it must be hard to patch the bugs that only some people have. I'm not very good with computers, but isn't one of the steps trying to replicate the bug to see how to fix it? If it's only happening to some, wouldn't it be harder to fix?

 

[Delusibeta]

True, the game is buggy and can be really frustrating, but I just don't get the whole vindictive tone. Why hate Obsidian? At least they're trying to make good, huge games. Even if NV crashed on me, I would still have gotten far more pleasure for much longer with it than with any other game since, well, Fallout 3.

They did release it unfinished, that's a failure, but I must say I don't really mind.

Exactly. IF every game has to be polished to a mirror shine, all games will be Realistic Man Shooters, and frankly we don't want that. Of course, there's the whole Obsidian hatedom which means that they get accused of stuff Bethesda got away with in the past (the vast majority of the bugs, in this case).

 

[Mr spank]

i would only hope that Obsidian will here the outcry from all of us about the terrible bugs in this game and do something to actually correct them. please obsidian, hear our cries!

i've been a long time fan of fallout and was really excited for New Vegas. all the bugs aside, i still think its a good game that can sit right in line with fallout 1 & 2. i'm about 50 hours in so far, but would probably be in another 10 if it weren't for the crashes and lockups.

i've gotta say, before the patch, i only experienced minor graphical glitchs, nothing major. but after the patch is when i got the corrupt save files and crashes. oh and all this on the Xbox version

 

[Twilight_guy]

I think they need to hire a dev team just to fix the engine... or make a new one. It seems like a fair bit of this is that the Foundation of Fallout is build on a foundation of mud. I think if they get there engine running like a fine tuned machine and not a wild old clunker they they could make some serious headway. Also, I have no real opinion on the article besides Shamus is right and fanboys suck.

 

[aaron552]

It is true that Obsidian has a reputation for buggy games. However, this is my experience with their games: KotOR II wasn't so much buggy as unfinished, NWN2 had A LOT of minor bugs, but nothing really major (no CTDs, for example) now we have Fallout: NV where I encountered an NPC stuck inside a rock and at least 2 CTDs within 1 hour of starting the game. (I have a non-bug complaint as well, actually:

Spoiler

the first playthrough got me killed by a Giant Radscorpion, at lvl 1, in the starting town; reloading didn't help since it clearly spawned right after I exited the doc's house, but only attacked me once it saw me.

)

To me, it appears that Obsidian's games are actually getting more buggy as time goes on, despite their reputation, which I'm sure they know about by now. My question is: Why don't they set deadlines and budgets so as to avoid this?

The publisher may be partly responsible, but the developer should have at least some say in that, right?

 

[perpetualburn]

Don't know why you responded to these fools Shamus. You will always have idiots who will blindly defend a game no matter what. There's no way to change their pathetic little minds. Just let them be happy. If they're ignorant enough to think that a game that is so monumentally buggy should be accepted as a product for sale then let them think that way. They have low standards and because of that they are paying for people's salaries. In a way they are doing a good thing; you know helping the economy with their retardedness. Never say that their isn't anyone that can't contribute to society.

Exactly. Shamus is responding to fanboys and idiots. Neither group should ever be given a platform and neither group will listen to his reasonable arguments either.

 

[ChupathingyX]

The thing I hated about your previous article was that for people who hadn't played the game, because you didn't say anything good, it would give them the wrong opinion that the whole game was bad.

 

[RobfromtheGulag]

Glitches be damned, my biggest gripe is still the [purposefully inserted] invisible walls. We're supposed to be roaming these giant desert plains, and I can't very well do it with invisible walls at the top of every outcropping. Though climbing in Fallout 3 could be hard, at least you knew that if you got to the top you were all set. Here climbing is just for kicks to see how far the invisible wall will let you get. Then you have to take the [pointlessly] predetermined route into an area, like only due SouthEast for Quarry Junction.