#Feargus Urquhart

[pierrotdameron]

[...] As the game begins, your character arrives in a remote corner of the world of Eora called the Living Lands as an envoy of the Aedyr Empire, where you've been sent to investigate a mysterious plague. "Not everybody in the Living Lands is super thrilled to have an imperial presence in this far-flung land," she said. "So adventure ensues."

[...] CEO Feargus Urquhart told me that in scope Avowed is more akin to Obsidian's past RPGs like The Outer Worlds in size than it is a sprawling open world a la Skyrim, though that was actually Obsidian's initial pitch. When the developers sat down and focused on what Obsidian does best—stories and companions, in particular—the more compact scale came naturally.

The way you interact with other characters in Avowed will be similar to The Outer Worlds, where your dialogue options reflect the tone you want to want to use. "We try to hit a sweet spot when we're writing dialogue options where we invest enough personality for those options to be fun and interesting, but also leave enough space around them so that the player can really invest whatever headcanon they built for their character into that option," she said.

Patel wouldn't spill much about Avowed's story, but did give me some of the basics on what form of RPG to expect from Avowed: 

You have an established role as the imperial envoy, but your "personality, appearance, and philosophy and vibe you bring to that role is up to you as a player to decide"

You can play as a human or an elf, but not other races

It's purely singleplayer—no co-op

The world is lightly systemic: think water and lightning interactions, but not the ol' bucket-on-the-head trick

You'll have two companions with you at a time, with their own combat specialties and, of course, personalities

There are several ability trees to progress through, and you won't be locked to a particular class or playstyle

You will level up, but the focus is on unlocking abilities rather than putting points into stats to grow stronger

Early in development, when Obsidian decided to prioritize a story "more focused on depth than breadth," the first-person combat ended up benefitting, too. Patel said that it was an example of a piece of Avowed that was surprisingly fun in their first vertical slice, a time when the team has to decide on what to commit more resources to and what to scale back on. Combat became a key focus, which should be music to the ears of every Elder Scrolls player who's always found the sword-swinging a bit wimpy. "Our combat has come along really, really well, and the bones have been there since the beginning," she said. 

Patel cited a lot of time spent tuning the feel of swinging a sword vs. a mace vs. an axe to make combat feel right, but the options available to players seem like the more significant element at play here. You're free to dual-wield weapons, wield both magic and melee simultaneously, and as in Pillars of Eternity, there are some old timey guns available. When I brought up how bored I am of game loot with imperceptible stat differences from one sword to another, she said that's been on their mind, too. 

"The way we've tried to approach that is erring on the side of fewer but meaningful upgrades. If you're upgrading your weapon from one tier to the next, you should feel the difference. If it's a small number change next to your item name, that's not going to feel as meaningful as going through an upgrade process, trying your weapon again and realizing it's doing a lot more damage. Fewer but more meaningful upgrade tiers."

From today's trailer, magic looks like it could be the bit of Avowed that really gives it its own fantasy flair. There's some excellent hand animation at work when the envoy draws runes in the air to conjure a fireball and later lifts a pulsing void skyward, sending a pile of guards orbiting weightlessly around it. I want a whole lot more of that, and I'm excited that I can mix magic with melee without being railroaded into a class. 

"In most of our games companions have been optional, which I think offers a wonderful degree of choice to players, but it means there's a limit to how deeply you can tie them into the core story. With Avowed we decided companions are going to be core. They're going to be part of the experience. And that means we can invest so much more in them and tie them much more closely, and personally, to the events and the parts of the world the player is encountering."

And can they die? 

This time there was a pause. "You'll have to see," Patel said. Until 2024, then.

[fyeahobsidian]

"Originally we were pitching, in essence, our Skyrim," confirms Obsidian CEO Feargus Urquhart in an exclusive interview with PC Gamer. "But that is not what Avowed, as it currently exists, is going to be. "I think over the course of time as we worked on it… Bethesda makes an awesome Skyrim. Mojang makes an awesome Minecraft, and Turn10 makes awesome racing games," says Urquhart, referencing a handful of Obsidian's sister studios at Microsoft. "What we do is we make our awesome RPGs, right?"

...

For Avowed, the focus is going to be specifically on your companions, and how their story relates to the driving narrative of the game. "We could go off and create an 8km x 8km open world and then deal with all the consequences of that—because that makes it a different style game. But we want to tell more confined stories that the player can experience with their companions, and then move from part of the world to part of the world. And, like I said, in the end, that's us."

[thefalloutwiki]

Fallout 2: Pre-release build

Were you previously aware that, according to Feargus Urquhart, a pre-release build of Fallout 2 was leaked prior to release?

This build of the game is currently Lost Media, and we are not aware of it surfacing in recent times!

You can read more about Fallout 2 here:

https://fallout.wiki/wiki/Fallout_2

[theclubhero-blog]

Os criadores de Fallout: New Vegas da Obsidian (ainda) querem muito fazer um novo Fallout

Por Vinicius Torres Oliveira

J�� faz um tempo que Feargus Urquhart e Josh Sawyer expressaram seu desejo de trabalhar na franquia Fallout novamente. Se você não sabe quem é, um pequeno lembrete é necessário! Feargus Urquhart não é outro senão o chefe do estúdio Obsidian, a quem devemos inúmeros jogos, incluindo o excelente Fallout: New Vegas de 2010. Antes disso, foi presidente da Black Isle Studios, empresa por trás da franquia Fallout. Josh Sawyer foi diretor do projeto Fallout: New Vegas, nada menos. Muitos fãs estão sonhando que Obsidian está trabalhando em um novo jogo Fallout, e parece que é apenas um estalar de dedos da Microsoft.

Em entrevista à Limit Break Network, Feargus Urquhart mais uma vez confidenciou que adoraria trabalhar em um novo episódio da franquia Fallout.

Fallout é muito querido para mim, você sabe, em termos da incrível quantidade de tempo que dediquei ao Fallout. Escrevi diálogos, projetei mapas, fui o designer-chefe do Fallout 2, que foi na época da Ilha Negra. E para Obsidian, foi um jogo extremamente importante, não só pelo amor que as pessoas têm por ele, mas também porque nos permitiu criar um grande jogo de mundo aberto, e aprendemos muito com isso. Então eu acho que é importante para nós, e Fallout é muito divertido. É por isso que a série é boa, é tão absurda. E eu adoraria fazer outro jogo Fallout. Nunca me afasto dessa ideia, sempre digo que nunca me afasto dela. E você sabe, veremos. Essa é a melhor resposta que posso dar. Mas se a oportunidade se apresentar, eu adoraria fazê-lo.

Esta não é a primeira vez que o chefe do estúdio revela o desejo de trabalhar na licença. Na verdade, já no início do ano passado, ele manifestou esse desejo. Entre o desenvolvimento de Avowed, The Outer Worlds 2 e pelo menos um outro jogo de mistério, o estúdio de propriedade do Xbox certamente já tem muito a fazer.

É claro que será necessário mostrar muita paciência para que tal projeto se concretize, pelo menos se o Xbox decidir deixar a Obsidian explorar a famosa licença Bethesda.

Por sua vez, Josh Sawyer não concedeu entrevista, mas participou do exercício de perguntas e respostas em seu próprio canal no YouTube. Um jogador procurou assim saber qual seria a sua resposta se a Bethesda ou a Microsoft lhe pedissem para fazer um novo projeto Fallout.

Sem dizer claramente que aceitaria imediatamente, apresentou todo um argumento sugerindo claramente que gostaria de estar envolvido em tal empreendimento.

Bem, é claro. Quer dizer, para qualquer projeto, acho que tem a ver com o que estamos fazendo, quais são os limites dentro dos quais estamos trabalhando, o que posso fazer ou não. Acho que com qualquer propriedade intelectual, especialmente aquela com a qual já trabalhei antes, a questão é: o que quero fazer desta vez que não pude fazer da última vez?

E se essas restrições são realmente muito restritivas, isso não é muito atraente, porque quem iria querer trabalhar em algo onde a única coisa que você deseja explorar não é possível de ser explorada? Mas não, eu gosto do universo Fallout. Acho que ainda há muitas histórias para contar e perguntas a fazer sobre a sociedade. Mas sim, você sabe, toda propriedade intelectual é um pouco assim. Você quer trabalhar nisso ou naquilo, mas não sei o que podemos fazer ou não.

Assim como o chefe do estúdio, o diretor de Fallout: New Vegas confirmou no final de 2022 que queria trabalhar novamente na franquia . Não vamos esquecer também que ele gostaria de olhar para Pilares da Eternidade 3 com um orçamento de AAA.

Após o lançamento de Pentiment no final de 2022, não temos ideia no que Josh Sawyer está trabalhando. Podemos esperar que um dia ele trabalhe em um spin-off semelhante a Fallout: New Vegas, obra considerada por muitos como o melhor episódio 3D da franquia!

[brazenautomaton]

"Countless videos showing beth employees boasting of what they did?" The fuck? Show me one. Show me a single one. These things don't exist, they never happened. You completely fucking hallucinated this, and then acted like it was a universally settled truth. The entire New Vegas fandom is like this. You cite things that didn't happen and you appeal to things that aren't there. The game you are so devoted to is a projection made up in your mind, yet you won't stop shitting on everything else for not being the imaginary thing.

The bonus for having a Metacritic score over 85 was something Bethesda threw in on top of the contract Obsidian negotiated. Obsidian didn't ask for it. They got an amount of money they thought was fair to make the game, and then Bethesda said "hey, you know what, we'll toss this in too for doing a good job." Feargus Urquhart directly said as much. He was very clear that if he ever negotiated a contract where it was up in the air as to whether he'd get paid, he'd be an idiot.

The thing about Obsidian's bug tracking is a fact. It is a fact about the world. It is objectively true, as reported by every person who worked at Obsidian at the time. Obsidian did not use a computerized bug-tracking system until... I want to say the Stick of Truth but that might not be the first one, it might have been part of Dungeon Siege 3's development.

You looked at an objectively true fact, then you said "this implies I should feel a certain way about Obsidian and Bethesda, but I don't want to feel that way," so you thought that fact couldn't have been true. You want to hate Bethesda games for being buggy, so it's impossible that Obsidian had a bad bug tracking system. (also are you shitting me Obsidian games were so much worse. NV and NWN2 refused to fucking launch on 1/3rd of people's computers; every thread about Mask of the Betrayer was about how to actually get the fucking thing to play)

The entire New Vegas fandom is like this!

impossible challenge: show me some way in which New Vegas is actually (as in actually) about politics and has something to say about or some means of engaging with politics...

...and this message or theme has to be stronger and more prevalent than the "the US could have won Vietnam if they had tried harder" theme

[housewarningparty]

Genuinely hope it burns Bethesda's asses that New Vegas is still considered the best modern fallout game and that no one ever shuts up about wanting Obsidian to do another one. More than that, I hope Microsoft gets to strong arm them into letting Obsidian actually do one, now that they're both owned by them

[blackaddersplays]

Another great interview by Matt Chat, this time with Feargus Urquhart who was involved with some of the greatest RPGs in history as Black Isle and later Obsidian producer - Baldur's Gate, Knights of the Old Republic, Icewind Dale, Fallout... Nice to hear the stories and how it all came to be - the end of Black Isle is really sad though.

Further parts: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=72Q0E6bQ_i0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0zY16pKjtlc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oKqkyEArDTQ

[jesawyer]

Hi Josh! What was your career pathway to where you are now?

When I was in college, one of the few productive things I did was teach myself HTML, Photoshop (already kind of knew it), Illustrator, and Flash 3.0. I did a few professional website jobs, including the site for Steve's Tattoo in Madison, Wisconsin.

When I was about to graduate from college with a degree in history and no real idea what to do with it (I thought I was going to do web design and maybe become an apprentice at a tattoo parlor), my friend Michael told me there was an opening for a webmaster at Black Isle Studios in Irvine, CA.

I applied with an excessively long cover letter. Of the 62 candidates who applied, 3 knew Flash. Their first choice declined the position and moved to Seattle to be with his girlfriend. Thanks, dude.

I started at Black Isle in March of 1999 and my first job was to design the website for Planescape: Torment. By around November of that year, I had convinced Feargus Urquhart, head of Black Isle Studios (and still my boss at Obsidian), to let me work half time as a designer on Icewind Dale.

I eventually transitioned out of web (my last site design was the original website for BioWare's Neverwinter Nights) and worked as a designer full time on Icewind Dale. I was also a designer on the expansions, Heart of Winter and Trials of the Luremaster. I was the lead designer on Icewind Dale II.

In 2003, as Interplay was imploding, I went to work for about a year and a half at Midway San Diego (on Gauntlet: Seven Sorrows). That didn't work out, so I got a job at Obsidian as a senior designer on Neverwinter Nights 2. I eventually took over as lead following the departure of that team's original lead.

After that, I worked on Aliens: Crucible (canceled), then directed Fallout: New Vegas, then a project for Microsoft called Stormlands (canceled), then Pillars of Eternity, then Pillars of Eternity II: Deadfire. Around that time, I was promoted to Studio Design Director. And I'm currently also the game director on Pentiment...

... coming November 2022.

[lobselvith8]

That’s not correct, @iamalivenow. Your entire post is misleading and factually inaccurate. Bethesda and Obsidian both agreed on the timeframe to make New Vegas from the start. Bethesda was also the one who offered the Metacritic provision in the contract, and getting royalties is not an industry standard in gaming.

Obsidian was never entitled to royalties from New Vegas (so let’s not pretend otherwise), and the reason Obsidian had to lay off employees is due to mismanagement by the head of the company, Feargus Urquhart. Chris Avellone, who worked at Obsidian, spoke about the mismanagement at Obsidian, the problems with Feargus Urquhart, and about the misconceptions regarding blaming Bethesda for everything that went wrong with developing New Vegas.

It’s one thing to applaud Obsidian for making an RPG with dialogue options, reactive choices, and different branching story paths with The Outer Worlds; it’s another to recycle the same misinformation about Bethesda and New Vegas that ignores how Feargus Urquhart is to blame for Obsidian’s woes.

for everyone who’s excited about obsidian dragging bethesda this isn’t just about how fucking trash garbage 76 is, this is about how obsidian was shafted by bethesda when fallout new vegas came out.

heres the thing, obsidian used to work on a weird kind of business model where they would make games on a budget for certain companies and if they met a certain review quota they would get a bonus.

new vegas missed the quota by 1 point.

1 point because bethesda didn’t give them enough money to make one of, if not the best game in the franchise, and rushed them continuously through production

this isn’t new drama

this is obsidian finally getting its vindication after bethesda robbed them and almost sent them into financial ruin

and its Great

[yerzhankaratay]

Кровь, пот и пиксели / Blood, Sweat, and Pixels / Game developers mentioned in the book and how to find them on Twitter

Разработчики игр, которые были упомянуты в книге. Собрал их аккаунты в твиттере для людей, интересующихся разработкой игр и игровой индустрией. Пройдите по нижеследующей ссылке, чтобы открыть файл в Google Docs.

Ссылки / Links

Game developers who were mentioned in the book. I collected their Twitter accounts for those are interested in game dev and game industry. Please follow the above mentioned link which will lead you to a public Google Docs file. 

Pillars of Eternity (Obsidian Entertainment)

Фергюс Уркхарт (Feargus Urquhart), Крис Авеллон (Chris Avellone), Адам Бреннеке (Adam Brennecke), Тим Кейн (Timothy Cain), Джош Сойер (Josh Sawyer), Бобби Налл (Bobby Null), Роб Неслер (Rob Nesler), Джастин Белл (Justin Bell), Эрик Фенстермейкер (Eric Fenstermaker), Кэри Пэйтель (Carrie Patel), Брэндон Адлер (Brandon Adler)

Uncharted 4 (Naughty Dog)

Эван Уэллс (Evan Wells), Кристоф Балестра (Christophe Balestra), Эми Хенниг (Amy Hennig), Джастин Ричмонд (Justin Richmond), Брюс Стрейли (Bruce Straley), Нил Дракманн (Neil Druckmann)

Stardew Valley (ConcernedApe)

Эрик Барон (Eric Barone)

Diablo III (Blizzard Entertainment)

Фрэнк Пирс (Frank Pearce), Майк Морхейм (Michael Morhaime), Джош Москейра (Josh Mosqueira), Роб Фут (Rob Foot), Кевин Мартенс (Kevin Martens), Уайатт Ченг (Wyatt Cheng), Джей Уилсон (Jay Wilson), Дастин Броудер (Dustin Browder)

Halo Wars (Ensemble)

Крис Риппи (Chris Rippy), Дейв Поттингер (Dave Pottinger), Анджело Лаудон (Angelo Laudon), Грэм Девайн (Graeme Devine), Тони Гудмен (Tony Goodman), Рич Гелдрич (Richard Geldreich), Пол Бэттнер (Paul Bettner), Дэвид Бэттнеры (David Bettner)

Dragon Age: Inquisition (BioWare)

Майк Лэйдлоу (Mike Laidlaw), Эрин Флинн (Aaryn Flynn), Марк Дарра (Mark Darrah)

Shovel Knight (Yacht Club Games)

Шон Веласко (Sean Velasco), Ник Возняк (Nick Wozniak), Иэн Флад (Ian Flood), Эрин Пеллон (Erin Pellon), Дэвид д'Анджело (David D'Angelo), Ли Макдоул (Lee McDole)

Destiny (Bungie)

Джейсон Джоунс (Jason Jones), Джейми Гризмер (Jaime Griesemer), Крис Бучер (Chris Butcher), Марти О'Доннелл (Marty O'Donnell), Джо Стейтен (Joe Staten)

The Witcher 3 (CD Projekt RED)

Марчин Ивинский (Marcin Iwiński), Михаил Кичиньский (Michał Kiciński), Адам Бадовский (Adam Badowski), Конрад Томашкевич (Konrad Tomaszkiewicz), Матеуш Томашкевич (Mateusz Tomaszkiewicz)

Star Wars 1313 (LucasArts)

Пол Миган (Paul Meegan), Стив Чен (Steve Chen), Фред Маркус (Frederic Markus), Дом Робиллиард (Dominic Robilliard), Эван ��кольник (Evan Skolnick)

[fyeahobsidian]

The making of Fallout 1 & 2:  Tales from the early days of Black Isle Studios

“Last month, Bertie and I visited Obsidian Entertainment to take a wander around the place and talk about some of the remarkable games they've helped create.

However, as we discovered, to really understand Obsidian Entertainment you need to know a little about where this team came from. Although established in 2003, a good number of Obsidian's developers had worked together beforehand as part of the RPG division of Interplay Entertainment: Black Isle Studios.

Together, they'd worked on franchises like Baldur's Gate, Planescape Torment and, of course, Fallout. There's some history there, huh? It'd be rude not to ask about it.

Join me in the 50-minute video below, as I chat with Feargus Urquhart, Leonard Boyarsky and Tim Cain about their work on the original Fallout 1 & 2.”

[theclubhero-blog]

Avowed é inteiramente single player também graças à aquisição da Obsidian da Microsoft

Por Vinicius Torres Oliveira

Parece que a aquisição da Obsidian pela Microsoft e a consequente “tranquilidade econômica” daí decorrente trouxeram benefícios à Avowed, que desta forma foi capaz de permanecer como no mercado de single player sem os acréscimos necessários para atingir um público mais amplo.

No último episódio do documentário publicado para comemorar os 20 anos da equipe, os desenvolvedores de Obsidian falam sobre Avowed e as origens do novo RPG que chega este ano para PC e Xbox, falando também sobre como o projeto foi revisado quando o estúdio foi adquirido pela Microsoft.

A questão também confirma o fato de Avowed, pelo menos em termos de design, já estar evidentemente nos pensamentos dos criadores antes da aquisição da Obsidian, ocorrida em 2018, apesar do jogo ter sido apresentado oficialmente apenas alguns anos depois.

Segundo relatos, parece que o chefe da Obsidian, Feargus Urquhart, inicialmente pressionou para tornar o projeto o mais atraente possível para as editoras, o que na época (como provavelmente também hoje) se traduziu na necessidade de incluir elementos multiplayer.

A ideia era tornar o jogo “interessante para as editoras”, mas isso mudou após a aquisição da Microsoft.

“Uma das coisas em que insisti muito foi que Avowed seria multiplayer, e continuei fazendo isso por um longo tempo, no final das contas foi uma má decisão continuar pressionando”, explicou Urquhart, “A razão pela qual fiz isso foi quando ainda éramos independentes e tivemos que vender o projeto para as editoras, isso teria sido mais interessante para as editoras, de acordo com os padrões da indústria. E quando você pede 60, 70, 80 milhões você tem que ter algo interessante para falar sobre multiplayer. surgiu dessa necessidade.”

Depois que a aquisição foi concluída, a Obsidian não precisou mais do apoio de uma editora. Embora obviamente as decisões sobre os projetos devam passar pela Microsoft, isso parece ter concedido uma certa liberdade criativa à Obsidian, que conseguiu estruturar Avowed como um clássico RPG single-player, no estilo da equipe.

[theoriginalcave]

Pillars of Eternity II reaches record breaking funding!

http://theoriginalmancave.blogspot.ro/2016/12/caveman-reviews-pillars-of-eternity.html

[comicbookcosplay-blog]

Black Isle Studios

Black Isle Studios was a division of the publisher and developer company, Interplay Entertainment. They were creating role-playing video games. In addition, it has been noted that they also have published games for other developers. The company was located in Irvine, California. The history of the division goes back to 1996 when it was founded by Feargus Urquhart. However, they adopted the name “Black Isle Studios” 2 years later in 1998. The studio is best known for working on the first 2 games in the influential and popular Fallout series. In addition, they also got success with the Baldur’s Gate and Icewind Dale series. Both series are role-playing video games. However, they only released the Baldur’s Gate series. In 2003, the company was officially closed because Interplay, its parent, went bankrupt.

Founding

It was founded by Feargus Urquhart back in 1996. Black Isle Studios got its name after Urquhart’s homeland. Meaning, the idea for the game came from the Black Isle in Scotland. According to some reports, the studio was credited for the development of the Fallout; however, they weren’t responsible for the game. It was talked that a key portion of the studio came from the team that created Fallout. Sometime later, when they were developing their first official game, Fallout 2, several employees left the company in order to found Troika Games. It was rumored that they left after they were unable to come to a settlement with the company on how their next team should be organized.

Closure

In the years leading to the closure of the studio, the parent company financial problems would get worse. That resulted into canceling games such as Stonekeep 2: Godmaker and Black Isle’s Torn. Moreover, it was noted that they would develop Baldur’s Gate: Dark Alliance 2, publish Lionheart: Legacy of the Crusader and releasing only Icewind Dale 2.

In December 2003, the worst time came for Interplay Interactive and the entire Black Isle Studios employees were fired. That lead to cancelation of the original Fallout 3, Baldur’s Gate: Dark Alliance 3 and Baldur’s Gate 3: The Black Hound. The name and the logo went officially out of use on December 8, 2003.

[lobselvith8]

Regarding the popular lie about Bethesda and New Vegas

There seems to be a persistent myth perpetuated about Obsidian and Bethesda regarding New Vegas, which has been fueled by certain people, like @iamalivenow. Despite the popular “rumor”, Bethesda and Obsidian both agreed on the timeframe to make New Vegas from the start. Bethesda was also the one who offered the Metacritic provision in the contract. A common misconception seems to be that this is typical, but that’s simply not the case: getting royalties is not an industry standard in the gaming industry. What Bethesda offered Obsidian was fairly atypical of a game studio.

Obsidian was never entitled to royalties from New Vegas, so Bethesda offering a bonus to Obsidian was not malicious (and it was a stroke of bad luck that they didn’t get the bonus, not some sinister conspiracy from Bethesda). Furthermore, the reason Obsidian had to lay off employees is due to mismanagement by the head of the company, Feargus Urquhart. Chris Avellone, who worked at Obsidian, spoke about the mismanagement at Obsidian, the problems with Feargus Urquhart, and about the misconceptions regarding blaming Bethesda for everything that went wrong with developing New Vegas.

It’s one thing to applaud Obsidian for making an RPG with varied dialogue options, reactive choices, and different branching story paths with The Outer Worlds (and I think Obsidian deserves success with their new RPG), but it’s another matter entirely to recycle the same misinformation about blaming Bethesda for the financial woes that Obsidian endured because of how Feargus Urquhart ran the company.

[xperiasound]

Why the Fallout series desperately needs Obsidian's help to become loved again

Why the Fallout series desperately needs Obsidian’s help to become loved again

Obsidian founder Feargus Urquhart has revealed his intentions of working on a new Fallout, if the opportunity ever arose. Obsidian hasn’t worked on a Fallout game since New Vegas in 2010, but many fans still see the spinoff as the best modern Fallout. After New Vegas, Bethesda Game Studios took back the reins of Fallout and has since developed Fallout 4 and the controversial 76. Fallout is a…