13. The unannounced semi-original IP "inspired by a license" project. It's the first original Obsidian project, so the expectations and pressure must be high. Without being too specific, what design decisions can we expect? What's Obsidian's vision of a successful and original project these days, when sequels seem to rule the gaming world?

This is purely hypothetical if someone takes offense at this, and since I am one of five owners, this is also solely my opinion without consultation with the other hive minds.

Vision of a successful project - the priority of these components vary, but I'll present them in the order of how I see the priority, since I am egocentric:

- Its core gameplay should be fun. Aside from our lead designer, Kevin Saunders, our third project has two of the three sub-lead designers (one Josh Sawyer, the other, Brian Heins, who were able to persuade to depart Rockstar) devoted to overseeing the two core game mechanics of the game and making sure they are as fun for the player as possible. I can't go into too much detail on the actual systems, but having someone carrying the torch for a core game mechanic is important - and it also allows it to be consistently held up throughout the entire game instead of chopped up amongst designers.

- At Obsidian, we place a high priority on story and characters. Again, with our third project, we have another sub-lead (Brian Mitsoda, who did a lot of the story work and dialogue work on Vampire: Bloodlines) devoted solely to the overall story, its presentation, dialogue, influence mechanics, and voice acting for the game. [More...]