Honestly, I agree with Xiph on this. I think it's awesome and think that all developers should shoot for this and leave the publishers out in the cold, but Obsidian games always come out buggy as fuck. Hopefully not getting fucked by release dates will help with this, but more likely it'll just result in them taking forever to make a decent game.

 

Sometimes a boot up the ass is a good thing.

 

Obsidian's releases:

2004 Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II – The Sith Lords
2006 Neverwinter Nights 2
2007 Neverwinter Nights 2: Mask of the Betrayer
2008 Neverwinter Nights 2: Storm of Zehir
2010 Alpha Protocol
2010 Fallout: New Vegas
2011 Dungeon Siege III

New Vegas is the only one I have experience with, but I was playing it from Day 1. I put 150+ hours into that game in the first month. It was buggy, but it was very, very playable as far as I was concerned. At least on PC. The console peasants had issues, but they aren't a concern here. The patches for New Vegas were released as quickly as Obsidian could turn them around in the early days. I last played New Vegas in February this year, and don't recall encountering a single bug.

To be fair to Obsidian though, every open world Bethesda game on the same engine was also a bugfest at release.

We've already discussed KotOR 2. Were the other games [NWN2, Alpha Protocol, Dungeon Siege III] unplayably buggy? Are they still? Every game from every company releases with bugs. Many of them don't show up until a million people are playing a million different ways on a million different machines. So long as Obsidian patches their games in a timely manner, as problems are found, I don't see the problem.

If bugs are a huge problem for you, just wait 3 months before you play. That works for Bethesda games.

 

I've never had an Obsidian game be unplayable due to bugs. They could be annoying at times, but they never drove me away with them. Honestly I think it might be the only thing I have good luck with.

And KotOR 2 with the Restored Content mod is one of my favorite games. Just saying.

 

Barring the one that I snipped due to knowing nothing about it? Yes. Oh Gods Yes. Alpha Protocol really had the potential to be something not-terrible, but that didn't happen. NWN 2 was compared to KoTOR 2 at release, which pretty much sums up my experience.

 

I don't recall having any bugs when I played alpha protocol, but the game wasn't as great as I thought it could have been. I didn't have any problems with F:NV either, but, I didn't find the game as good as people were claiming. I've been playing dungeon siege 3 for the past few weeks, and it's pretty good as well, but it feels like it's missing something. The camera angle always seems to max out at about 10 degrees short of what you want it to be at, which can be frustrating at times, but it's not really a bug. The only real bugs I've had in any of the games listed are in Neverwinter Nights 2: I've got the discs, but every time I go to install, it always tells me there's no disc in the drive. I'm sure this is some anti-piracy counter, but its very annoying that it still happens when I have the actual discs. Not a real game play bug, but it bugs the shit out of me. I still haven't been able to play the game. The only game on the list I haven't played is KOTOR2, but I have played 1, and it was good.

 

NWN2 had some issues with the DRM it was saddled with, which is more Atari's fault rather than Obsidian's. The game itself wasn't too bad. I didn't get any serious game crashing shit at least, just a few bugged skills and some performance issues that the next few updates helped to fix.

Alpha Protocol I've played for like 20 minutes so I have no idea.

 

If we're talking about Neverwinter Nights 2, there's a few problems. Firstly, you can't help but compare it to the original, which is a fantastic RPG built on the pretty-much rock solid Aurora Engine. Bioware dumped a ton of work into the project, and Neverwinter Nights became one of the best games the company ever shipped (the expansion packs a bit less so, but my point remains). The other thing was that Neverwinter Nights had one of the strongest modding communities in RPG gaming, particularly before Oblivion. Most players, including myself, modded the hell out of the game to make it the equivalent of tabletop 3rd Edition D&D.

It didn't help Neverwinter Nights 2 on launch when it was shipped, that same breadth of content wasn't there - even when compared to the unmodded Neverwinter Nights. Sure, the graphics were prettier, but the story was far, far weaker, the gameplay wasn't accommodating to soloing (which pissed me off to no end), and the new engine was prone to crashing, particularly on low-to-mid-range PCs. The modding community (which has slowly revived itself based off of tools that came in patch after patch after patch, but weren't shipped on original release) has restored the functionality to roughly the equivalent of the original NWN, but it took a lot longer to get to that point, and the original campaign just isn't as fun to play through as the first NWN.

So yeah, while Obsidian might be ambitious with some of their content, they desperately need to get a handle on their engine stability or else their new RPG is going to flop the same way Alpha Protocol did.

 

Kotor has been discussed and so has NWN 2. Alpha Protocol...had some issues. Not just on the technical end either, though not as bad as the previous two mentioned. Also, never played New Vegas myself, but I heard the glitching was abysmal in places.

Those all shared 3-D rendered graphics engines, but from the looks of it this is more geared towards Baldur's Gate era graphics. I've little experience, none in fact, with any of those games. Did Icewind Dale 1 & 2 come out alright? Buggy? Engaging? If the answer is a 'they were fine/great', then I'll part with some money.

 

The Infinity Engine games are some of the greatest CRPGs ever released. If they still have enough of the old Black Isle talent working at Obsidian to reproduce those, then it's money well spent.

 

Alpha Protocol... I raged about that fucking game, but I saw what they wanted to do. No idea why the hell they let it out the door in the condition it was in. NWN2. I hated it, and I can't honestly remember why.

Ah yeah

We'll see what they wind up with. I'll bite the bullet and pay for them to work it out, hopefully it'll be worth it.

 

Played only Kotor2 ,Alpha Protocol and Dungeon Siege 3 and while Kotor2 had some massive issues I had no problems with later ones. The all seem miss some content/feel short/ not complete but otherwise enjoyable games.. at least for me.

 

Project Eternity is still early in development and we are still working on many of the cultures, factions, and ethnic groups of the world and debating many of the system concepts. However, there are certain fundamental things we want to let you know about the game and the setting for Project Eternity.

Your Party
The maximum party size is the player's main character (PC) and up to five companions for a total of six characters. This does not preclude the addition of temporary characters in special circumstances. Companions are never forced on the player. Players can explore the entire world and its story on their own if they so choose. We feel companions are excellent sounding boards for the player's (and other companions') actions, but the story is ultimately about the player's personal conflict among the larger social and political complexities of the world.

Formations
A key element of the classic party-based tactical combat that we are developing is the use of party formations. As in the good ol' games, you can arrange your party in a large number of set formations. You can also construct your own formations if you want to get fancy. When moving companions, you have the ability to rotate formations for more precise positioning.

Character Creation
At a minimum, players will be able to specify their main character's name, sex, class, race (including subrace), culture, traits, ability scores, portrait, and the fundamental starting options of his or her class (gear, skills, and talents). We have not worked out customization details of character avatars, but we believe those are important and will be updating on these specifics in the future.

Companions
In Project Eternity, companions exist for both narrative and mechanical purposes. Companions are designed to have a driving interest in the player's central conflict. Their personalities and motivations open plot branches and generate conflicts for players to resolve over the course of the story. They are highly reactive to the player's actions and to the world around them. Additionally, companions exist to give players strategic management options in party composition that expand the party's capabilities in exploration, combat, and quest resolution. It is no coincidence that there are at least as many companions as there are classes. As stated above, companions are not required to play through Project Eternity's story, but we feel that they can add greatly to the experience.

The Set-Up
The player witnesses an extraordinary and horrific supernatural event that thrusts them into a unique and difficult circumstance. Burdened with the consequences of this event, the player has to investigate what has happened in order to free themselves from the restless forces that follow and haunt them wherever they go.

The Nature of You
Your character is not required to be of any particular race, cultural background, sex, class, moral outlook, personality, organization, etc. The premise is that you are a victim of circumstance. How you choose to deal with your situation is up to you. You can bear it with stoicism and restraint or fly off in a rage at anyone who gets in your way. The world will react to your choices, but the game is designed to give you the freedom to play your character the way you want to.

Races
We are still developing the races of Project Eternity, but we are creating a range that encompasses the recognizable (e.g. humans, elves, dwarves), the out-of-the-ordinary (e.g. the so-called "godlike"), and the truly odd (?!). Races and subraces differ from each other culturally, but the races also have different physiological factors that can contribute to friction and confusion between them.

Within even the recognizable races (including humans), we are creating a variety of ethnic subtypes and nationalities. This world's races did not all spring forth from the same place, and millennia of independent development have resulted in distinctive and unconnected groups. For example, the dwarf ranger below is originally from a southern boreal region that is quite different from the temperate homes of her distant kin to the north.

Additionally, Project Eternity's world contains some isolated races and ethnicities, but transoceanic exploration and cultural cohabitation have heavily mixed many racial and ethnic groups over time. This mixing is not always... peaceful. At times it has degenerated into genocide and long-standing prejudices are ingrained in many cultures.

***

src.: http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/60221-update-3-game-basics-your-party-your-characters-and-races/

 

Not gunna win any rewards for original story but looks really good.

 

I find this thread really funny. I adored Alpha Protocol and New Vegas-- AP needed to be patched, yeah, and probably some more dev time, but I'd rather a game that tries something new and fucks it up because it isn't down to a formula yet. And I never once had bug problems with New Vegas after about a hundred hours clocked. And fuck all the haters, New Vegas is finally a worthy successor to Fallout 2.

KOTOR is just a shitty series. The first KOTOR sucked, so it's no surprise the second did as well. D20 is a terrible base system and Star Wars is a terrible, shitty, boring universe.

And for all of those who enjoyed NWN but hated NWN2-- Go back and play them both. Seriously. Right now. Just the base games, because yes, the community for NWN was way better. You might be surprised at what you find.

Note that I'm not defending Obsidian-- There's a whole hell of a lot of shit wrong with that company. I just think y'all's taste in games is, well, crap.

 

I did go back and do this. Fairly recently, actually, given as I was having a devil of a time getting NWN properly patched and workable, so I figured what the hell, why not just play the games sequentially.

And after that, I'm even further convinced NWN was the better game. Sure, it doesn't look the best, but graphics don't tend to mean as much to me (but then again, I'm weird that way - I occasionally boot up a DOS emulator to play 1993's TIE Fighter in all of its polygonal glory). No, what I'm talking about is gameplay engine (and once you get a handle on both engines, I still find NWN's more user-friendly), story (of which NWN is fathoms deeper than NWN2's - particularly when it comes to themes, subtext, and NPC relationships), and system stability (of which NWN wins hands down for being damn near crash free, while NWN2 just... wasn't).

 

Good thing this is a PC release.

Sony and Microsoft's processes for patching are a laborious, month+ long, very expensive, opaque bureaucratic process. And that's just for one patch. If something has to be changed in the patch or new fixes discovered in that month, then the process goes back to the beginning. There's no end to devs [from indie to AAA studios] bemoaning it and it's the reason that console games don't get patched quickly or at all.

Obsidian's track record on consoles is largely irrelevant to a PC release. I know Bethesda and Obsidian games are crippled on consoles, and I always feel bad for people who have to play them there.