Obsidian and inXile acquired by Microsoft

[fantadomat]

It is amazing how different people are. I am playing on 3X speed with the help of cheatengine and feel annoyed at how slow it is during rains. Anyway,have fun playing it,no offence meant with this post.

You are dumbfuck, so no offence taken.

Yup,i am the dumbfuck for being able to play the game fast while the true genius like you have to stop every turn and prolong a trash battle for hours. D&D is such a complex system that only MIT graduates could play it.

 

[TemplarGR]

PST...

I've probably said this before.

I never left the first room with the skull..TOO MUCH TEXT. If may have been a great game later, I will never know since I am not suffering through that text-wall again.

Who ever wrote all that bullshit text and found it interesting to the player had serious diarrhea of the brain.

I wanted to play a game, not read some self pompous ass's novel.

Zep--

Indians have their sacred cows and codexers have Torment. You can't "insult" either. You are supposed to worship both...

 

[TT1]

Has it made you filthy rich? Have you bought a golden yacht to sale off into the sunset on?

Brian Fargo: Haha. No, listen, I do this because I love it.

 

[Sacred82]

Fargo is full of shit at this point. That takeover wasn't being negotiated since April. The whole thing is so fishy you can smell it from Yurop.

Whatever their motivation may have been, this was a swashbuckling, join the crew or walk the plank takeover.

 

[StaticSpine]

After 16 years as an independent developer, inXile Entertainment is no longer on its own. The RPG specialist was recently acquired by Microsoft, a move which inXile founder and CEO Brian Fargo told Eurogamer should give it some breathing room.

"My goal is to always get my company in a safe harbour so we can spend as much time as possible working on our games and honing our craft," Fargo said. "That can come if you sell 2 million units - that's a great way to get there which everyone hopes for. Or, a deal like this. But at the end of the day that's all I ever cared about."

Fargo added that achieving that goal of stability has gotten more difficult over the years. When inXile launched its first Kickstarter project, Wasteland 2, in 2012, game budgets for the "AA" space the company was targeting were $5 million or $6 million, Fargo said. Now it's closer to $15 million to $20 million. With Microsoft's backing, Fargo believes inXile can keep up with the escalating cost of development, and perhaps push things a little further still.

"We've always known as a small developer what our goals are, but we don't have unlimited money - and I'm not talking about going crazy, ramping up to these huge triple-A projects, that's not what we're trying to do," Fargo said. "But we want to step it up a bit because there's this uncanny valley between the double-A and the triple-A. We could come out with a game like Bard's Tale [4] and we could say, 'Hey, it's a 35-person team and it's only $35,' but the people playing it are like, 'Nope. I'm just looking at The Witcher 3 and I don't really care.' We don't get to explain; we just need to close the gap."

Fargo said the studio has about 70 full-time employees and an additional 15 regular contractors, and is considering bumping that headcount up by about 30%.

Among those staffers should be Fargo himself. While he had previously said he was planning to retire after Wasteland 3 ships, Fargo acknowledged the acquisition means that possibility is "off the table."

https://www.gamesindustry.biz/artic...t-acquisition-gives-inxile-safe-harbour-fargo

 

[rusty_shackleford]

A company with 85 employees is now considered a "small developer"?

 

[Whisper]

Speaking of reviews, I usually pay attention to what Darth Roxor has to say about games. He called PoE2 "pretty alight", which is a glowing praise coming from him, and DOS2 a disaster on every front. I will definitely buy Battletech and Kingmaker at some point, but none of these games made me want to buy them right away.

I highly recommend Pathfinder Kingmaker. It has best dungeons for isometric game (better than in BG or PoE). Sepulcher of fallen heroes, Old sycamore, Abandoned dwarf fortress. At least play through them and you understand. It reminds me of AoE dungeons (though AoD ones were too small, but fun).

 

[Sacred82]

Speaking of reviews, I usually pay attention to what Darth Roxor has to say about games. He called PoE2 "pretty alight", which is a glowing praise coming from him, and DOS2 a disaster on every front. I will definitely buy Battletech and Kingmaker at some point, but none of these games made me want to buy them right away.

I highly recommend Pathfinder Kingmaker. It has best dungeons for isometric game (better than in BG or PoE). Sepulcher of fallen heroes, Old sycamore, Abandoned dwarf fortress. At least play through them and you understand. It reminds me of AoE dungeons (though AoD ones were too small, but fun).

let me add that DOS2 is far from a disaster on every front. That review was, unfortunately, typical DR hyperbole. Just because something falls apart at some point doesn't mean an RPG of that level is shit. Same goes for Mordheim btw.

 

[imweasel]

^
D:OS 2 is shit. Larian took everything that made D:OS great and threw it out the window, chucked the RNG for a really shitty deterministic system, and kept all of the terrible stuff, like that god awful itemization.

Swen would have to make something really amazing for me to forgive him after that disaster.

 

[Tigranes]

The irony is that we could well see Larian go for big budget big audience blockbuster in their next game - and Obsidian do the same with MS. One stays independent, another gets bought up (maybe gets a bigger budget, maybe not), but I wonder if we're going to see them both pop out a glossier larger-audience game next time round.

 

[Zep Zepo]

Divinity: Underworld

Come on Swen, show these other losers how it's done.

Zep--

 

[DeepOcean]

Swen would have to make something really amazing for me to forgive him after that disaster.

By the way we "basket of deplorables" were treated and how Swen now is on greener pastures filled with dollar bills and don't need us "vocal minority" idiots anymore, that isn't going to happen any time soon.

 

[Deleted Member 16721]

I think InXile is going to benefit a lot. They produce the most "old-school type" of CRPGs out of the Kickstarter devs IMO (outside of Owlcat, who now rule as far as I'm concerned ), and I think we'll see more of that from them, just with higher budgets so more features, more polish and better games overall. Seems like a good move to me.

 

[Roguey]

I think InXile is going to benefit a lot. They produce the most "old-school type" of CRPGs out of the Kickstarter devs IMO (outside of Owlcat, who now rule as far as I'm concerned ), and I think we'll see more of that from them, just with higher budgets so more features, more polish and better games overall. Seems like a good move to me.

They released one groggy thing with Wasteland 2 and immediately moved away from it with ToN, BTIV, and promised that WL3's character system will be streamlined for greater appeal. AA studios are done with "old school," we'll only be getting that from garage devs from this point forward.

 

[Deleted Member 16721]

They released one groggy thing with Wasteland 2 and immediately moved away from it with ToN, BTIV, and promised that WL3's character system will be streamlined for greater appeal. AA studios are done with "old school," we'll only be getting that from garage devs from this point forward.

I played 30 hours of BT4 and it was by no means a casual game. I'd call it old-school just with a new flavor. I also beat T:ToN and enjoyed it a lot, again not a casual game at all (1 million words of dialogue, sheesh). Wasteland 2 was sufficiently old-school. The ironic thing is it was a lot of people on here asking for WL2 to be more streamlined. Not me though. But I think still out of the Kickstarter studios that InXile makes the truest old-school style CRPGs. T:ToN still had a ton of dialogue checks, branching paths and CRPG "stuff" to not make it a casual game.

 

[TemplarGR]

They released one groggy thing with Wasteland 2 and immediately moved away from it with ToN, BTIV, and promised that WL3's character system will be streamlined for greater appeal. AA studios are done with "old school," we'll only be getting that from garage devs from this point forward.

So let me get this straight: You are upset they are changing the WL3's character system because you thought WL2's was actually good?

 

[Roguey]

So let me get this straight: You are upset they are changing the WL3's character system because you thought WL2's was actually good?

No, I'm saying they're not "old school." I was/am a strong supporter of a WL2 character system overhaul.

 

[Jimmious]

WL2 char system was p.good in general but had some major idiocy in it, like the intelligence/skill point relationship for example

 

[fantadomat]

WL2 char system was p.good in general but had some major idiocy in it, like the intelligence/skill point relationship for example

Isn't just like any other good rpgs? More intellect more skillpoints....like in fallout and D&D games.

 

[Jimmious]

WL2 char system was p.good in general but had some major idiocy in it, like the intelligence/skill point relationship for example

Isn't just like any other good rpgs? More intellect more skillpoints....like in fallout and D&D games.

Not exactly. It didn't make any sense to have any other value in Intelligence other than 1,4,8 or 10. Because only then you'd get 2,3,4 or 5 skill points per level. The values in between didn't change anything so basically it was kind of pointless to have any other value.
That was slightly remedied in DC with some Perks that used Intelligence I guess but was not enough.

It would have been much much better if there was more "steady" progression in skill point aquisition

 

[Kyl Von Kull]

WL2 char system was p.good in general but had some major idiocy in it, like the intelligence/skill point relationship for example

Isn't just like any other good rpgs? More intellect more skillpoints....like in fallout and D&D games.

Not exactly. It didn't make any sense to have any other value in Intelligence other than 1,4,8 or 10. Because only then you'd get 2,3,4 or 5 skill points per level. The values in between didn't change anything so basically it was kind of pointless to have any other value.
That was slightly remedied in DC with some Perks that used Intelligence I guess but was not enough.

It would have been much much better if there was more "steady" progression in skill point aquisition

Pretty sure this was kinda true of many attributes. They only gave you a boost to the main stats they affect at odd levels, or every third or fourth level. The progression in W2 is just kind of odd. More like the arbitrary cutoffs in AD&D (where there’s no difference between 7 dexterity and 14) than 3.X where a 2 point increase in any attribute boosts its bonus by 1.

let me add that DOS2 is far from a disaster on every front. That review was, unfortunately, typical DR hyperbole. Just because something falls apart at some point doesn't mean an RPG of that level is shit. Same goes for Mordheim btw.

Larian’s stuff has never really clicked with me and I gave up on D:OS about halfway in. However, I’ll give them this: the Larian guys have become geniuses at frontloading their best content, which is the right way to sell RPGs in a world where most players will never finish the first act.

 

[Jimmious]

Pretty sure this was kinda true of many attributes. They only gave you a boost to the main stats they affect at odd levels, or every third or fourth level. The progression in W2 is just kind of odd. More like the arbitrary cutoffs in AD&D (where there’s no difference between 7 dexterity and 14) than 3.X where a 2 point increase in any attribute boosts its bonus by 1.

Yeah I'm not saying it was a unique idiocy only in WL2. It's just that it felt weird when creating characters to decide whether your character is completely retarded, base line intelligent or genius. All states in between are pointless

 

[Sacred82]

let me add that DOS2 is far from a disaster on every front. That review was, unfortunately, typical DR hyperbole. Just because something falls apart at some point doesn't mean an RPG of that level is shit. Same goes for Mordheim btw.

Larian’s stuff has never really clicked with me and I gave up on D:OS about halfway in. However, I’ll give them this: the Larian guys have become geniuses at frontloading their best content, which is the right way to sell RPGs in a world where most players will never finish the first act.

sarcasm aside, long boring tutorial dungeons/ Act I that is just you learning the ropes and nothing else are outdated for a reason. Replayability definitely profits from an interesting start. If that means frontloading in essence, so be it.

 

[AwesomeButton]

One stays independent

Time to ask the important question - are you really independent in your game design choices, when you have to sell millions of copies in order to keep your bloated development team afloat?

 

[PorkBarrellGuy]

sarcasm aside, long boring tutorial dungeons/ Act I that is just you learning the ropes and nothing else are outdated for a reason. Replayability definitely profits from an interesting start. If that means frontloading in essence, so be it.

You'd think that, but the best-selling triple-A games still start with long, unskippable tutorial missions.

I'm guessing it's insurance against retards who will demand refunds/tank user reviews for stupid reasons, but when you build a retard trap, they just build a better retard.