Obsidian's Pillars of Eternity 'not due in first half of 2014', needs more time

[Achilleslastand]

http://www.strategyinformer.com/news...eeds-more-time


The original project scope for what became known as Pillars of Eternity would have likely seen the top-down RPG released around this April, but all those extra millions led to a much larger game.

Project lead Josh Sawyer confirms with certainty that it won't be out in the first half of 2014. It went from a "relatively modest" five-classed RPG, to a mouth-watering 11 classes.

Obsidian knew by the end of the Kickstarter campaign that their original release estimate was going to be missed but they couldn't change it at the time.

"We foresaw needing a bit more time when the Kickstarter ended. It's understandable that people don't know this but when you start a Kickstarter, once it goes live, you can't change that date. You're not allowed to change to that date," explained Josh Sawyer. Project Eternity asked for $1 million but ended up with over $4 million.

"When we started with a million-dollar budget and a relatively modest game with five classes, that was assuming if we get $1m we can make this game and we'll probably get it done by April. We got almost four-times as much money and that's a much bigger game, and that doesn't mean that immediately we just dump four-times as many people on it and it also gets done in April. There's a lot more stuff to do."

"We knew that at that time," he said. "But until we get really close to releasing the game we don't want a specific release window, because we're not a publisher, we don't have to! Virtually nothing good comes from us releasing a date before we're very confident in it. It's not going to be in spring; we're going to be working into spring to get alpha done because it's a big game."

Sawyer reveals that "more than half the content of the game is done," achieving at least an alpha state.



Currently Obsidian is wrapping up work on South Park: The Stick of Truth, which will mean additional resources are freed up to assist RPG Pillars of Eternity, which currently has 20-25 devs. The project's coffers continue to grow as Obsidian has their own crowd-funding options via their website.

They do plan for an early access version of the RPG. "We are going to be having a section of the game that the players can play through to get a feel for all the mechanics and style of character interactions and all that kind of stuff," said Sawyer. "Yeah, that is planned."

Obsidian Entertainment hope for Pillars of Eternity to start a whole new series of games. "Whether it's a direct sequel or something else... If we put in the time and the energy to not only develop the technology but also develop this world and the characters and all that stuff, it just makes sense for us to keep making games in it if people like it."

[Gaidin]

Hell, a goal of 1 million and they get what, four times as much? Raise your hand if you're shocked at the delay. Especially when Kickstarter usually comes with things like "WE'LL MAKE MORE IF WE GET MORE MONEY!" If anybody raises their hand they'll have to go sit in the corner and wear a dunce cap.

[Gaidin]

Also, another game that did about the same thing they did.

[Sir Adrian]

I don't mind if they push it to next summer. It's better to have a bug-free well tested game which you can truly enjoy than getting to play it 3 months early.

[Gaidin]

bug-free

The gaming community is now laughing at you.

[Facupay]

I'm having tons of fun with Blackguards and it's the first actually challenging RPG I have played in a long time.

Hope this return to classic RPGs gives some good games, Pillar's of Eternity needs to be the flagship.

[Jean=A=Luc]

Alright, take your time Obsidian.

[Sir Adrian]

The gaming community is now laughing at you.

Because nobody has ever released a bug free game, ever. So much fail

This may come as a surprise but all Obsidian projects in the past years have been rushed out the door by the publishers (except for Fallout New Vegas where obsidian didn't even handle bug-testing)

[Inhuman One]

Looks like this game will make or break obsidian since this time they cant blame a publisher if the game is released in a shoddy state.

They released unfinished games under many different publishers.

[the_mango55]

How would this game break obsidian? It's already been paid for.

If games from them previously that have been "released in a shoddy state" didn't break them why would this one?

[Gaidin]

Because nobody has ever released a bug free game, ever. So much fail

This may come as a surprise but all Obsidian projects in the past years have been rushed out the door by the publishers (except for Fallout New Vegas where obsidian didn't even handle bug-testing)

They're laughing even more because the people actually working on this project actually give a damn about it and you haven't quite kept up with the history of the project from the standpoint of the developers. Well, first things first, the Infinity Engine rip-off isn't the hardest thing to program as a fundamental concept. It's got a few whistles and bells added compared to the old Baldur's Gate game, that much can be told just from the gameplay teaser, but that's what you're looking at. They probably got that out the door fairly quickly as an engine they could move around in. While there is 3D(maybe even only seeming 3D) in the world, there's a fundamental 2D map to the world with a great art asset laid over it as opposed to a distinct polygon we can see. What they probably ran into more trouble on is collision detection and world definition for the backgrounds. A good bit of trial and error was probably required for hammering out the definitions of the first few maps for players to run around in. Probably fairly easy to just sort of fall off of Atlas' shoulders in the first few months of development until they really standardized that and got a few level designers that can get that stuff going smoothly from art to level. But once its standardized, it'd flow.

Nah, the more difficult thing is character balance for class and monster creation. This was a fairly simple thing for Baldur's Gate because they literally had a book sitting in front of them for the world, the classes, the rules, the abilities, everything. All they needed were the assets, be it programming, art, or a combination thereof. What you've got here is you've got a set of people creating their world. What you've also got here is you've got a set of people that pulled in $4,000,000+ on Kickstarter. Go to Pillars of Eternity's website. You may find Obsidian's logo, but here's the thing you won't find: a separate publisher. Let's go over their history as a developer now. KOTOR II: LucasArts. Neverwinter Nights 2: Atari. Alpha Protocol: Sega. (that one actually was a pretty awesome game but that's an aside argument) Fallout New Vegas: Bethesda/Namco. Dungeon Siege III: Square Enix. This is literally their pet project. Obsidian said **** the publisher, went to Kickstarter, and pulled in $4,000,000 and are handling it themselves. Hell, they are still receiving money, just not on Kickstarter. So you know what they get to do? Well, first they get to actually make the game. The first reason they went to Kickstarter was so they could even make the engine. No modern publisher would fund the programming of that software. They also get to turn their writers loose to worldbuild and write a story off that. They didn't try to argue with the publisher, and they've got no pressure to meet a certain style that the publisher will think will sell a hell of a lot, nor is their possible outrageous pressure to release early by a certain quarter. No. They can make the world and story they think will be good for their game because they are their own publisher unlike every game they've done before then. This is all pretty much touched on in Pillars of Eternity's wiki where specific articles are cited.

Seriously, with the design of the engine by programmers that have experience doing this work before, the world they create is what will make or break the game. And they have the freedom to do it.

[Inhuman One]

I meant that it could break them if it fails. They have a history of releasing unfinished and broken games, lesser sequels to greater franchises. But all those times it could be argued it was because of the publisher. Even while it was time and again a different publisher with them being the constant factor. They lose a lot of credibility if this game is yet again broken and buggy on release.

They have some good writers, at least for some of their games and some interesting ideas. But the technical side is notoriously bad for their games. New vegas is their only game I played that wasnt plagued by crippling bugs or a clearly unfinished state.

[the_mango55]

Did you play Mask of the Betrayer?

Best expansion for any NWN game by a wide margin.

[Inhuman One]

NWN2 is so broken that I didnt bother with the expansions. It's still the only game I'd consider to be released in a worse state than Rome 2. Building an expansion on NWN2 is like building a house on sand.
With characters looking like the result of several genetations of inbreeding, animations and the camera being terrible, performance requiring more than it should compared to whats shown on screen and various crippling bugs, the story wont matter anymore.

Also, let's not forget hordes of the underdark, The Wyvern Crown of Cormyr and The Community Expansion Pack for NWN1.
HotU pushed what was possibile with the engine quite far, it was doing things that werent deemed possible on release. WCoC added horses and mounted combat, something thats extremely rare for any rpg to have it seems. This along with all its other assets including many tilesets, various creatures, armor and some weapons where added for free through a patch.
And the community expansion pack more than doubled the entire assets of the entire game, in all aspects of it. Tilesets, armor, weapons, creatures, objects, etc.

[Manco]

Some good writers?
They've got ing Avellone man, he's a legend.
(disclaimer: PST introduced me to RPG's which makes me a raging fanboy)

As for make or break them. The only one really focusing on their buggy history is you. I agree that it was a real issue so I don't want to simply discard it or trivialize it, but there's also a reason no one else is really talking about it. And that's because for most of us, the buggyness was outdone by the quality of their games. Their history of deadlines and publisher relations is also well known; KOTOR2 having such amazing restoration mods is exactly because Obsidian had laid the groundwork for so much they were ultimately forced to remove and FNV was buggy because of Beth, they handled Q&A and many of the worst bugs have been with us from Oblivion and even Morrowind.

[the_mango55]

HotU was pretty good, but as a single player game to be played as released, and not as just some toolset to build multiplayer persistent worlds, MotB was far superior.

[ivan_the_terrible]

How would this game break obsidian? It's already been paid for.

If games from them previously that have been "released in a shoddy state" didn't break them why would this one?

I think he has a point: fans have been willing to give them the benefit of the doubt in the past because of publisher pressure (whether true or not). If this turns out to be a bad release, then fans won't have publishers to blame. It's conceivable that for many fans the disillusionment would be too great. Though for others I'm sure it wont matter because, as Manco said, they've come to expect it and because the distinct Obsidian positives outweigh them.

[blank]

HotU was pretty good, but as a single player game to be played as released, and not as just some toolset to build multiplayer persistent worlds, MotB was far superior.

Absolutely. MotB featured pretty much the only realistic (personality-wise) characters in any NWN release. And the story is so many miles ahead of NWN2 itself (which was indeed an abomination in many ways), that it's hard to believe they were produced by the same company. NWN was a rather generic fantasy fare, it's expansions were better (i'd say SoU was superior to HotU in regards the the story), but not at the level of MotB.

Also, KOTOR2, if you include the restored content, had stronger writing than K1, it really was unfortunate that the technical side was as atrocious as it was.

Of course, it is a subjective matter and I myself tend to prefer storylines with a darker undertone, so that in itself is a big plus for me in MotB and K2.

[Inhuman One]

Heh well in NWN the best characters are found online, played by other players.

As for KOTOR1 and 2's story.. I agree that the player responses are so much better in KOTOR2. Much more options while the KOTOR dialogue options where a bit childish. "I want to be a jedi guardian!" "I want a basilisk war droid!"
But overall I must say the KOTOR1 story is better. The narrative is more focused, in KOTOR2 it's one big mess and its just so pointless wether you kill or save the jedi masters since the outcome is just the same. And no amount of restored content seems to fix the weak ending. The darker theme is interesting, but it really takes a while for the story to get going, and once you get near the ending its rushed. KOTOR1 just feels more connected.
Individual bits of dialogue often seem stronger, but its simply not that well tied together into a story.
It shows that having a good story is not everything, you need to know how to tell the story.

[Kanaric]

Obsidian needs to take time with their games, now they are not under Atari's thumb I expect delays and far better products.

I trust them to make a good game with a good publisher or self published.

People are blaming Obsidian for something that is out of their hands when the publisher that was the disease caused it's problems with MANY franchises and games. Or have we all forgotten about Master of Orion 3 and TOEE already?