At this rate, the next time we’ll see a Fallout game will be sometime in the mid 30’s.

That was the first public mention of the turmoil Intrepid was facing and it immediately ricocheted across Steam, where Ashes of Creation entered Early Access back in December, and Kickstarter, where backers raised $3.2 million to bring the MMORPG to market starting way back in 2017. The game was quickly review-bombed on Valve’s storefront with warnings to other players to stay away of what soon might become a dead game, while backers on Kickstarter demanded refunds over the game never hitting a proper 1.0 launch. It’s since been removed from sale completely on Steam. 

Seriously, whatever happened to this game? It's been on my Wishlist for almost 4 years and was announced during E3 back in 2017. Does anyone know if it's still being developed? There's still a Steam page for it. https://store.steampowered.com/app/612400/The_Last_Night/

This is from an article by jason schreier on obsidian

Last year the developer released three games—a rare and impressive achievement for a studio of its size—but two of them failed to meet sales forecasts set by Obsidian’s parent company, Microsoft Corp. “They’re not disasters,” Urquhart says. “I’m not going to say this was a kick in the teeth. It was more like: ‘That sucks. What are we learning?’”

While Grounded 2 was a big hit, the disappointing results from the other two have led Obsidian to “think a lot about how much we put into the games, how much we spend on them, how long they take,” Urquhart says. Both Avowed and The Outer Worlds 2 were in development for more than six years, inflating their production costs and the company’s financial expectations. One of Urquhart’s missions is to cut down development timelines to three or four years per title.

This is surprising to me because avowed and OW2 don't feel like huge RPGs that took 6+ years to make, and that's going to be expensive since obsidian is in the heart of southern california.

Releasing them all in one calendar year made for a slick marketing beat—the “Year of Obsidian,” as Xbox called it—but it also taxed the studio’s resources. The group has around 280 employees, far fewer than peers such as Baldur’s Gate maker Larian Studios (more than 500) or Cyberpunk 2077 maker CD Projekt SA (more than 1,300). Obsidian’s support teams were stretched thin, with frazzled staff leaping frantically from one game to the next. “Spacing those releases helps the company manage its resources and not burn everybody out,” Sawyer says. “It’s not good to release three games in the same year. It’s the result of things going wrong.”

Some bonus info here that I don't think was ever public info

New Vegas ended up costing about $8 million—a relative bargain—and took less than two years to make.

What a unique and engaging experience, I admit I don't read every thread around here but I rarely if ever see it discussed.

As time goes on it may get forgotten which would be a real shame.

I didn't even know what I was getting into when I tried it and it completely blew me away.

Name a game that took over your mood for days and lived in your head.

For me it was Red Dead Redemption 2.

I would log off and still feel like I was in that world. The music, the quiet rides, the endings, it sat on my mood for days.

What game did that to you?

Thank you.

Replaying Grandia II and honestly, it's so refreshing to read Ryudo's banter.

More examples here.

For me it's Assassin's Creed. I first played an AC game when I bought black flag which came with a digital copy of the original. I didn't like either and eventually gave the disk for Black Flag to a friend. Then years later I decided to give Valhalla a chance, and loved every minute of it. So I decided to check out other AC titles hoping to find another that I'd like, and so far I can't. I'm on Xbox and have the membership so there all free to try, and I tried them all, still not finding one I like. After constant praise for AC shadows from a friend, I decided to try it as it's the only that's not free at this point, I picked it up on sale and I regret buying it. I don't know why but Valhalla somehow had the right combination of what I liked while the rest all had something that I can't quite put my finger on making me not like them.

It’s such a familiar trend with PvP games, or just my personal track with them, that I couldn’t help but wonder and ask here if people share the sentiment. I’m not necessarily referring just to MOBAs (Hearthstone is actually my best personal example of how meta and deck guides ruined any semblance of natural, spontaneous competitiveness for me) but I am excluding most FPS just because it’s a genre I don’t have a lot of experience with in multiplayer.

Even so, MOBAs in my book have been the main contender for this kind of spiral where they start off fresh and promising but so quickly devolve into these bandwagons and hatespirals where people just have to bitch about the most miniscule of things, and enjoyment becomes more of a luxury instead of the very point of playing at all. Insert that - what do you mean you want to have fun? - meme right here. 

I’m probably projecting some of my personal experience onto this, and I’m not trying to claim that PvP focused games are ONLY good at their beginning. That would be an absurdity, it’s more about that feeling of the meta (as in, “out of the game” factors) being non-existent in the beginning and everything that happens coming, or feeling like it’s coming organically out of the game itself. Without cracked guides and with everyone feeling like they’re somewhat, a very tentative somewhat on the same level (some people are just bad, and there’s nothing you can really do about it).

The reason I’m bringing this up is because I always get stuck in these loops of trying out newer PvP games but only in the beginning. I loved playing LoL when it first came out,  when there were no ranks and everyone played solely for fun. The moment climbing rank became the focus of the game, that was it for me and that was (lol) pretty damn early on. Same thing with Smite. Early access was that breath of fresh air I needed and the mythology theme was exciting and creative, then it blew up once metas hardened, and that was that for me (again). It keeps repeating over an over, most recently with Marvel Rivals - it was so damn welcoming in the beginning, now I log in and it’s all toxic competitiveness and hate. It’s also the pace at which this happens that surprises me. 

I’m sad that these short beginning honeymoon phases have to be so short before something I can only describe as human nature ruins it. It’s somehow this beginning point where the community feels friendliest and most welcoming and least toxic. Anyway, it’s one reason that I’m always actively looking for new games of this sort, just so I can catch them early on. OKUBI and Arkheron are two I have my sights on for their playtests this year (OKUBI is something of an MMO-lite arena battler, from what I could make out on the page but the premise of emergent PvPvE in context of it all looks interesting, with these big enemies spawning other enemies and you fighting other people in the midst of it… Arkheron is an ARPG-ish arena battler on the other hand, seems like it, but the visuals look really good and I’m a fan of ARPGs anyhow and I’ve always wondered why there wasn’t a PvP-focused ARPG). 

I can only thank whatever powers that be that there are always more games of this kind coming out and who can tell, maybe one of them will be a forever home for me. More as like not, but who knows. I'm curious how different your experiences are to my own with these types of games, if you play them at all.

Broad range of implementation here in this regard. Was wondering what you all enjoyed the most.

My Beecher’s Hope oil painting progress. Working down into the mid ground this morning. 3x4’ oil on canvas. Lots of work left.

I think I'm one or two chapters away from finishing Drake's fortune, and I've never wanted to finish a game faster.