We are Obsidian Entertainment and David L. Craddock, creators of fine RPGs and author of “Beneath a Starless Sky,” a FREE online book that recounts the making of Pillars of Eternity 1-2 and the Infinity Engine RPGs. Ask us anything!

Is Microsoft acquiring Obisidian?

We unfortunately don't comment on rumors or speculation. Unless you want to speculate how much the after match brawl at UFC 229 was a work or a shoot, because I can go on about that all day.

What if it was a worked shoot?!

They shot themselves into a work and right back into a shoot.

Brother! Much love -HH

This might be out of the scope of this AMA, but can you tell us anything more about the relationship between Black Isle (where some Obsidian Devs came from) and Bioware in the Baldur's Gate/Icewind Dale/Fallout/Neverwinter Nights era? It's just something I've been curious about as some of my favorite games of all time were made by those two companies

Many devs from Obsidian will be able to draw from their personal history, but I can also take a crack at this one. The first chapter of Beneath a Starless Sky, my Long Read on Shacknews, goes into detail on the relationship between Black Isle, BioWare, and Interplay.

The short version: BioWare started development of Baldur's Gate--their second game, following Shattered Steel--when the company was small. Black Isle, an internal division of Interplay, agreed to publish it and provided numerous resources including funding and input on design. BioWare was the primary developers, and their lead programmer, Scott Greig, was the chief architect of the Infinity Engine. After BG2, BioWare was ready to build new technology and move on from Baldur's Gate, so they licensed the Infinity Engine to Black Isle, whose developers made Planescape: Torment and Icewind Dale 1 and II.

Hope that helps!

Beneath a Starless Sky was absolutely fascinating. I sat down to skim through the first page, not sure I was really interested in spite of having played all of those old games for hundreds of hours... and then I read the entire thing, and recommended it to several friends.

Really good stuff.

Thank you! So glad you enjoyed it.

What can you tell us about Microsoft?

• As a 13-year-old kid, Windows 95 blew my mind.
• I still ran most games in DOS, which was more than the flimsy shell we have now.
• Plug and Play was mostly bullshit until semi-recently.
• Remember Bill Gates?

Will Beneath a Starless Sky: Pillars of Eternity and the Infinity Engine Era of RPGs be available to purchase on Amazon? Or will an audiobook version be made available?

We've got plans for physical editions, but for the immediate future it'll remain as an exclusive read on Shacknews.

If it helps, we redesigned the site earlier this summer, and Long Reads constituted a huge part of our plans for the redesign. Specifically, we used to load entire "articles" at once. Last December's Long Read, Rocket Jump: Quake and the Golden Age of First-Person Shooters, was so large it broke browsers. And reading on mobile or tablet devices? Forget about it.

Now, we load one chapter at a time, and you can easily read on a browser or save to reading apps like Pocket. give it a try!

What are you guys opinion on pineapple pizza?

Not my thing, but all pizza is good pizza.

Hi, I got back home too late to take part in the AMA, but just in case there's a chance the team can answer, I have to ask: I'm a fresh out of college with a degree in literature and I'm looking to get into writing for video games. Do you have any advice on how I should get started? Are there any jobs/internships available at Obsidian or any of its associates I could try to partake in to forward this goal?

Hello! I'm the author of Beneath a Starless Sky, not any of Obsidian's games, but I have written for a few games. Here's some advice, but take this with a grain of salt because I haven't done any narrative writing for games since 2011-ish.

• Study writing in games. Do this by playing lots of different games: Story-heavy games such as Pillars of Eternity, The Witcher, and The Last of Us, but also games where audiovisuals do a lot of the heavy lifting, such as Diablo and pre-Ocarina of Time Zelda games.

• Study different types of writing in games. Think about your favorite RPGs. What makes the dialogue stand out? Notice how it doesn't drone on and on? Game writing, like TV writing, has to be snappy. Communicate the point quickly while establishing a unique voice for characters.

• Look up game companies hiring writers. Did you find any? Probably not, because getting hired as a writer and only a writer is pretty rare. For instance, the narrative designers on Pillars of Eternity use an interface in the company's proprietary toolset rather than traditional word processors such as MS Word or Google Docs. (Read chapters 5 and 13 of Beneath a Starless Sky if you want more info. :) Look up what requirements these companies have and play around with tool sets they require, many of which are cheap or even freely available.

• Obsidian's narrative designers also spent time collaborating with artists, level designers, and programmers in particular because game development is a collaborative effort. Not just an effort: a feat. You won't be writing or designing in a vacuum. (And again, designing is a more accurate term, because most studios will expect you to have at least cursory experience in design environments such as Unreal, Unity, etc. You don't need to be a master programmer, but some familiarity with those environments and tools won't hurt.)

• Read! What makes a good character or plot stand out to you? How about bad plots? Also, look up memoirs, Internet posts, and other reading material by game writers and designers. Get an idea of what it's like to walk in their shoes.

Lamp, sand... ?

Lemon! Wait, no... orange? Lime! It's lime!