Obsidian General Discussion Thread

[dukeofwhales]

Piracy is the only moral choice.

 

[SarcasticUndertones]

Piracy is the only moral choice.

OK, I'll go further, reason it out.

It would hurt developers in the short term, but if piracy ever reached critical mass then it would be the publishers who ultimately couldn't make the money and wouldn't get involved because no money, but the actual creators of games, or something resembling a game, would always make something even if they had to hawk their homebrew games on a disc by disc basis at street corners.

Fine, we wouldn't get triple AAA, or possibly anything at all even partially near to the quality of some of the indie games, but at least any money made from any product would go to the guys that made it and exploiters of ip would get fuck all.

I'd call that a moral result from an action, ergo an action that produces a moral result is a moral action.

Simplified to exaggerated levels possibly, but not 'wrong' and certainly better than funding an industry that is increasingly shit in quality and encourages legal ip hoarding, outrageously immoral trespasses and the exploitation of creative talent as the games industry does at the moment, and I'd happily, in a goddamned hot second, forgo the majority of my gaming for such a result and the production of a cottage industry where the creator, and only the creator, was paid his fair due.

EDIT.. and in case anyone thinks this is some kind of excuse for my own actions, (which TBH I don't give a fuck even if you do) the last AAA title I PLAYED was Castlevania2: LOS (gorgeous fucking game and played really well too) which I bought from Steam along with it's predecessor. when they came out. I buy GOG in general.

 

[dukeofwhales]

I'm having trouble with this because of just how dumb it is. Some thoughts:

• Integrity in games journalism is entirely on the journalists, not on the publishers. If you have an issue with that, don't read those articles and they don't get any revenue out of them. You still don't have a link between "games journalism is corrupt" and "piracy is the only moral way to play games"
  
• The moral answer to disagreeing with publisher actions is to not play the game, not to pirate it and write long posts on message boards arguing how moral your actions are.
• Those meanie publishers are the ones who front the costs to run developers who make the games. Developers take on no risk, in return for handing over a lot of their profits and some creative control. That's the deal. Developers aren't getting screwed. If they want all the profits, then they have to pay the upfront costs themselves, that is way your precious free market (which you are relying on to bankrupt the publishers) works.
  
• If something like this does somehow gain momentum, it doesn't mean that publishers go out of business, it means that publishers focus entirely on making FIFA and COD on consoles, because that is what sells. Pirating good games means good games do not get made. Sure, it's like voting - your individual action doesn't matter much - but you're calling for piracy on a large scale because, uh, journalism is corrupt. Or something.

 

[DalekFlay]

I feel like this weird pariah because I've never had significant bug issues with any Obsidian game. I thought that mostly a console reputation.

 

[SarcasticUndertones]

I'm having trouble with this because of just how dumb it is. Some thoughts:

• Integrity in games journalism is entirely on the journalists, not on the publishers. If you have an issue with that, don't read those articles and they don't get any revenue out of them. You still don't have a link between "games journalism is corrupt" and "piracy is the only moral way to play games"
  
• The moral answer to disagreeing with publisher actions is to not play the game, not to pirate it and write long posts on message boards arguing how moral your actions are.
• Those meanie publishers are the ones who front the costs to run developers who make the games. Developers take on no risk, in return for handing over a lot of their profits and some creative control. That's the deal. Developers aren't getting screwed. If they want all the profits, then they have to pay the upfront costs themselves, that is way your precious free market (which you are relying on to bankrupt the publishers) works.
  
• If something like this does somehow gain momentum, it doesn't mean that publishers go out of business, it means that publishers focus entirely on making FIFA and COD on consoles, because that is what sells. Pirating good games means good games do not get made. Sure, it's like voting - your individual action doesn't matter much - but you're calling for piracy on a large scale because, uh, journalism is corrupt. Or something.

Dumb?

READ this... and stop saying MY actions..

EDIT.. and in case anyone thinks this is some kind of excuse for my own actions, (which TBH I don't give a fuck even if you do) the last AAA title I PLAYED was Castlevania2: LOS (gorgeous fucking game and played really well too) which I bought from Steam along with it's predecessor. when they came out. I buy GOG in general.

and yes in a corrupt industry burn the whole fucking lot down by any means possible. Don't like this? Don't read this 'article'.

And refusing to blame a publisher equally, especially as we KNOW what they do, in a complicit agreement,, is just as dumb as anything you think I've written.

But I do say this.. if you play ball with this industry the way they want you to play ball, and would even excuse it.... don't call me dumb for you have no legs.

"Developers take on no risk".. This evidently isn't true if they are making contracts for payment based on proposed bonuses on quality they think they can achieve, that they aren't going to get because of underhanded publisher based tactic.

"but you're calling for piracy on a large scale because, uh, journalism is corrupt. Or something.".. the fact that you have to say "or something".. is either simplifying matter way farther than I've done in order to justify your points, or you really do think that narrowly, either way that's not good, and not a representation of what I'm saying.

 

[dukeofwhales]

Note that I deleted my comment because I decided I couldn't be bothered with this argument (which is why the post has disappeared). I still can't be bothered but suffice to say we obviously disagree with each other and aren't going to be convinced.

 

[SarcasticUndertones]

Note that I deleted my comment because I decided I couldn't be bothered with this argument (which is why the post has disappeared). I still can't be bothered but suffice to say we obviously disagree with each other and aren't going to be convinced.

You deleted because you couldn't be bothered anymore?

Smells like bullshit to me, If I was confident in what I'd written in the first place I'd have left it up then just posted again saying..

"Fuck this for a lark, dumbass, I'm off.".. or simply walked away. I certainly wouldn't have felt the need to hide what I'd already written.

See I don't care how stupid I come off to some random spud, like it matters ("Just as well, self", he said), I'm in it for the exchange.. or rant, however it's seen.

But ok, Fuck this for a lark, off you go. Door and backside and all that.

 

[dukeofwhales]

No, because if I don't delete my post, I would get continually harassed to respond to your bullshit, whereas if I delete it before you saw it, that is no longer a problem. Unfortunately however, you saw it before I managed to delete it.

 

[SarcasticUndertones]

I feel like this weird pariah because I've never had significant bug issues with any Obsidian game. I thought that mostly a console reputation.

Ah-ha.. one of the lucky ones, yep I do admit exceptions to the rule, but if you've played the majority of then I'd be more than likely to say that you just don't remember them, or that it didn't bother you enough to note, rather than you didn't suffer from them at all.

But I'm certainly not going to call you a liar (not a sarcastic comment.)

 

[SarcasticUndertones]

No, because if I don't delete my post, I would get continually harassed to respond to your bullshit, whereas if I delete it before you saw it, that is no longer a problem. Unfortunately however, you saw it before I managed to delete it.

Isn't this what's happened?

 

[dukeofwhales]

Indeed.

 

[SarcasticUndertones]

Indeed.

OK, Bye then.

BTW.. I didn't see your post before you deleted it, only your notification that you had deleted it.

 

[Jaesun]

Brian Fargo confirmed that Bethesda moved the release date up by a few weeks so they'd have to ship an earlier (and buggier) build to reviewers. They knew they had a hit, just needed to bang it up a bit so it wouldn't score too well.

Where is your source for this?

 

[DalekFlay]

Ah-ha.. one of the lucky ones, yep I do admit exceptions to the rule, but if you've played the majority of then I'd be more than likely to say that you just don't remember them, or that it didn't bother you enough to note, rather than you didn't suffer from them at all.

But I'm certainly not going to call you a liar (not a sarcastic comment.)

I'm sure what people consider a significant bug depends on the person as well. Did I ever fast travel in New Vegas and find an enemy stuck in the geometry? Sure, a handful of times in dozens of hours. Did that really effect my enjoyment of the game? No. I never had a broken quest or anything like that, that I recall.

 

[Rake]

I feel like this weird pariah because I've never had significant bug issues with any Obsidian game. I thought that mostly a console reputation.

Nor did i, but as i generaly play games at least 2 years after release, i just assumed they patched them and at release they were trainwrecks. That's why "buggy reputations" leave me completely indiferent.
How close to release did you played them?

 

[Crooked Bee]

I played New Vegas and AP right after release and never had any significant bugs or broken quests. I'm as lucky as it gets.

 

[naossano]

Played it 3 years later and i only have one, which isn't gamebreaking.
Sometime, when you launch the game, it crashes if you try to load the very last savegame. You just have to load an old one, and then the very last.
Once you have loaded, you play with no troubles.

 

[Roguey]

Brian Fargo confirmed that Bethesda moved the release date up by a few weeks so they'd have to ship an earlier (and buggier) build to reviewers. They knew they had a hit, just needed to bang it up a bit so it wouldn't score too well.

Where is your source for this?

http://www.ripten.com/2012/03/27/br...l-publisher-treatment-and-having-fun-again/3/

Original link replaced with actual source, damn game sites making articles where they link to other sites.

 

[Whiran]

I played New Vegas and AP right after release and never had any significant bugs or broken quests. I'm as lucky as it gets.

I'm with you with this experience: I don't recall running into any major bugs with Fallout: New Vegas.

I think perspective is always of value in discussions like this. The people who experience 'game crashing bugs' are typically a very small and vocal minority. Usually (not always though) it has something to with the individual configuration of their own computer since there are almost infinite permutations of how computers can be set up.

If a game sells 100,000 copies and has a fail rate of 1% that's still 1,000 unhappy users. If one in ten people are willing to send in a letter of complaint (which is the rough estimate that used to be used by political offices when receiving letters and faxes - one letter would be assigned a representational value of ten) that is still 100 complaining and vocal users.

Put those 100 people on a forum and suddenly you have a forum 'full of complaints' which might lead to the conclusion that the game is a buggy and unplayable mess - while ignoring the 99,000 people who are playing just fine. Or if those 100 people who to a review site and 0 rate the game that's 100 negative "reviews."

 

[Spockrock]

When I say stand behind it.. I don't mean fanboys on RpgCodex, I mean that -he- stands behind.

I would agree if Josh was an indie developer controlling every step of making his games. but he's just a designer overlooking the making of a game, naturally he can't make all the calls. expecting him to be entirely pleased with a game as complex as the ones Obsidian makes is rather pointless, I think

 

[Immortal]

When I say stand behind it.. I don't mean fanboys on RpgCodex, I mean that -he- stands behind.

I would agree if Josh was an indie developer controlling every step of making his games. but he's just a designer overlooking the making of a game, naturally he can't make all the calls. expecting him to be entirely pleased with a game as complex as the ones Obsidian makes is rather pointless, I think

A game doesn't have to be flawless or perfect for you to say: "You know what? I achieved what I wanted".

Even the most adamant perfectionist (I am one of these types of people) will recognize that the stars can't always align.. The problem is, during development these grand ideas unfold in his head, then when they fall short as vocalized by the customer base, Josh THEN is the first person to hop on a game review website saying he felt the same way the whole time but other people / issues got in his way.

This is my beef with him as a designer. Also the fact he yells at people he works with (by his own admission) because he's drinking the -Anita 'Cherry Picker' Sarkeesian- Koolaid.
He backed her 100K kickstarter and watches her videos when they release (So maybe one video a year), then brings that bias to the designer table at Obsidian..

Maybe even I am biased in my distaste of him but IMO he is the most negative force at Obsidian despite any pro's he might bring being a intelligent / dedicated person.

 

[Renfri]

Played it 3 years later and i only have one, which isn't gamebreaking.
Sometime, when you launch the game, it crashes if you try to load the very last savegame. You just have to load an old one, and then the very last.
Once you have loaded, you play with no troubles.

From start to finish I encountered at least few dozen crashes when I played F:NV after I bought it from Halloween Sale. Sure it was annoying, but luckily you are back in game very quickly. If that would have happened while playing game like LOTRO few years back it would have been srs bsns. Those lauching times...

 

[Bleed the Man]

There's no denying Obsidian games, as much as I like them, were very buggy on release. The thing is, the Bugsidian type of fame, although kind of granted, shows the hypocrisy of mainstream journalism. While Obsidian games have serious bugs that highly damage the quality of the product, Bethesda games have bugs, yes, but it's understandable becuase of the size and ambition of their games, and a lot of them are kind of funny and enjoyable, so they're almost a feature!

 

[DalekFlay]

I feel like this weird pariah because I've never had significant bug issues with any Obsidian game. I thought that mostly a console reputation.

Nor did i, but as i generaly play games at least 2 years after release, i just assumed they patched them and at release they were trainwrecks. That's why "buggy reputations" leave me completely indiferent.
How close to release did you played them?

I played New Vegas at release. It was actually the last physical game box I bought, that huge collector set. Alpha Protocol I can't remember, it might have been later on. KotOR 2 was later on I guess. Still haven't played Dungeon Siege 3 or South Park yet.

 

[Jedi Exile]

The people who experience 'game crashing bugs' are typically a very small and vocal minority. Usually (not always though) it has something to with the individual configuration of their own computer since there are almost infinite permutations of how computers can be set up.

This. Obsidian games do have bugs (and most of them aren't game breaking at all), but their reputation as 'Bugsidian' is greatly exaggerated. Some people just love to complain: they encounter a single bug or their game crashes once and they are calling it 'unplayable'. They are either retarded or this is just

Spoiler