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Jeff Vogel: 22 games in 22 years, mostly from his basement

Crevice tab

Savant
Joined
Jul 4, 2013
Messages
224
Meh. Vogel has said some stupid stuff over the years but he doesn't deserve all the criticism that's coming his way.

Seriously he's a one man team who released 4 independent series containing 14 games not counting remakes. What's more all his games are large and some of them like Geneforge and Nethergate are genuinely good with plenty of C&C, interesting stories and settings and somewhat okayish combat.

Doing all of that on your lonesome deserves serious respect: just look at the utter bullshit AAA+ companies tried (and mostly succeeded) to pull. Jeff has done what he could with the rather limited resources a available to him. Frankly his work is impressive enough on it's own merits and I tip my hat to him for being so prolific and creative these past 20 years.
 

buzz

Arcane
Joined
Apr 1, 2012
Messages
4,234
Even the Avernum games are pretty good if you enjoy dungeon crawlers and exploration. People make them sound like the shittiest shovelware imaginable, but except 4 I found all of them to be very strong games.
 

Dayyālu

Arcane
Joined
Jul 1, 2012
Messages
4,465
Location
Shaper Crypt
Meh. Vogel has said some stupid stuff over the years but he doesn't deserve all the criticism that's coming his way.

Seriously he's a one man team who released 4 independent series containing 14 games not counting remakes. What's more all his games are large and some of them like Geneforge and Nethergate are genuinely good with plenty of C&C, interesting stories and settings and somewhat okayish combat.

Doing all of that on your lonesome deserves serious respect: just look at the utter bullshit AAA+ companies tried (and mostly succeeded) to pull. Jeff has done what he could with the rather limited resources a available to him. Frankly his work is impressive enough on it's own merits and I tip my hat to him for being so prolific and creative these past 20 years.

What do you not get is that I love GF. I mean, I think they are better than Baldur's Gate in many regards. I liked Exile's first remakes. They are, aso buzz said, "solid", and I loved for example some pieces of Avernum 2's exploration model. However, he's decent at writing, nothing more, and let us be honest, the graphical side of his games is horrendous, all his images are commissions and his systems are derivative, even if somehow original. Let us be cruelly honest.

The problem is THAT THE GODDAMN MAN IS OBLIVIOUS AT WHAT MADE HIS GAMES WORTHY OF MY TIME AND MONEY AND INSTEAD APES RETARDED AAA+ CLICHES AND KEEPS REMAKING GAMES I ALREADY PLAYED TO DEATH

THIS IS NO CRITICISM THIS IS FRUSTRATION I DON'T WANT A GENEFORGE REMAKE I ALREADY FINISHED IT THREE TIMES

I'd like something new, something original (I cannot BE the only one kinda tired of terrible D&D barely Tolkienesque unimaginative generic RPGs settings or stock Fallout-derivative post apoc) and with some kind of depth. I'm frustrated because Vogel not only fails to see the obvious, but he says that "He's old, tired and it's not worth the effort."

It's a freakin' pity. You can say all you want ("2014 RPGs renaissance" or whatever) yet pretty much nothing is similar to GF C&C or Nethergate's setting and double campaign. Bar The Alliance with Rome, of course.
 
Last edited:

torpid

Liturgist
Joined
Aug 2, 2010
Messages
1,099
Location
Isma's Grove
Well, Vogel is being lazy and self-serving when he denounces the Codex as a den of pirates, but he did get JarlFrank to get all butthurt & defensive and "even Geneforge suxx!1" so to be fair to Vogelito, he isn't entirely off the mark :lol:

And while piracy is what it is, making it a point of pride or principle to pirate Vogel's games, including the original ones, is petty as fuck. Dude isn't some corporate Moloch running a cash-to-coke-&-whores converter, he's a one-man-developer with wife and kids. Don't play his derivative games, sure, I haven't touched any of his newer stuff, but boldly declaring that you're sticking it to a solo developer making games from his home is just being a wanker.

buzz said:
He went through a lot of shit, from being mentioned in the same breath as Wizardry and Fallout, sitting in the middle of the big cRPG drought of the 00s and now being outclassed by other indie devs who can get money beforehand to improve their games and shit

Vogel being outclassed by indie devs isn't going through a lot of shit, it's what happens when I guy who's been openly recycling his games is facing stiffer competition from hungrier devs. Underrail wasn't raising the big Kickstarter bucks but Styg set out to make something ambitious from the get-go. I could understand feeling sorry for Vogel if he had been consistently pushing the envelope during the decline years without selling much, only to have the Kickstarter train pass him by, but he wasn't pushing shit. It would actually be tragic if the newcoming indie devs were struggling while Vogel prospered on copypasted titles.
 

torpid

Liturgist
Joined
Aug 2, 2010
Messages
1,099
Location
Isma's Grove
Also, a single Vogel interview & tweet has caused tears and now posts with all caps

:excellent:

Vogel's better at trolling than making games at this point
 

JarlFrank

I like Thief THIS much
Patron
Joined
Jan 4, 2007
Messages
33,048
Location
KA.DINGIR.RA.KI
Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
It's a freakin' pity. You can say all you want ("2014 RPGs renaissance" or whatever) yet pretty much nothing is similar to GF C&C or Nethergate's setting and double campaign. Bar The Alliance with Rome, of course.

That's true. Some of his games certainly have their strengths, and their charme, which is why I like Geneforge and Nethergate. Only with Avadon did the decline of his shit begin. Tried Avadon 1, it was the most boring of his games I tried. After the strong Geneforge 5 I expected more games of that quality.
 

Karellen

Arcane
Joined
Jan 3, 2012
Messages
327
You know, I didn't like Avadon (it had really boring combat encounters), but I'm not sure it's necessarily apt to call it decline. At any rate, I think it's only tangentially related to the decline, because I don't think he made Avadon in order to "sell out" in any shape or form. I mean, to an extent I imagine he has some interest in trying to attract a slightly different audience for a change, but I don't think he necessarily even considers it a particularly good business decision. Actually, if there's something he considers to be selling out, it's making remakes of his old games, which apparently sell better than his original stuff.

So why did he make Avadon? Well, if you actually read what he wrote, it seems to be because doing new things is what keeps him from stagnating artistically; he makes new, different kinds of RPGs because he wants and needs to, not because of cynical market analysis. In fact, it's the opposite of cynical market analysis. If it has any relation to the more recent trends in RPGs, it'd be because he played one of those and thought, "huh. I wonder if I could make a game like that." So really, while I think it's conceivable that Jeff Vogel is a has-been (when he talks about his age, he kind of brings up that possibility), I don't think it's fair to insinuate that he's given up on any principles. He's still basically making the games he wants to make to more or less the best of his ability to make, which, if anything, sounds like an incredibly idealistic pursuit to me.
 

Crevice tab

Savant
Joined
Jul 4, 2013
Messages
224
What do you not get is that I love GF. I mean, I think they are better than Baldur's Gate in many regards. I liked Exile's first remakes. They are, aso buzz said, "solid", and I loved for example some pieces of Avernum 2's exploration model. However, he's decent at writing, nothing more, and let us be honest, the graphical side of his games is horrendous, all his images are commissions and his systems are derivative, even if somehow original. Let us be cruelly honest.

The problem is THAT THE GODDAMN MAN IS OBLIVIOUS AT WHAT MADE HIS GAMES WORTHY OF MY TIME AND MONEY AND INSTEAD APES RETARDED AAA+ CLICHES AND KEEPS REMAKING GAMES I ALREADY PLAYED TO DEATH

THIS IS NO CRITICISM THIS IS FRUSTRATION I DON'T WANT A GENEFORGE REMAKE I ALREADY FINISHED IT THREE TIMES

I'd like something new, something original (I cannot BE the only one kinda tired of terrible D&D barely Tolkienesque unimaginative generic RPGs settings or stock Fallout-derivative post apoc) and with some kind of depth. I'm frustrated because Vogel not only fails to see the obvious, but he says that "He's old, tired and it's not worth the effort."

It's a freakin' pity. You can say all you want ("2014 RPGs renaissance" or whatever) yet pretty much nothing is similar to GF C&C or Nethergate's setting and double campaign. Bar The Alliance with Rome, of course.

Parroting what's trending is the eternal curse of the gaming industry.

Small companies parrot big companies and big companies parrot each other and other industries. I can seriously understand Vogel being fucking tired. Spouting one game per year can't be easy without having to develop a new franchise from nothing.

Also the unwashed masses like generic stuff. I remember an interview with Vogel where he said Nevergate and Geneforge were less successful than Avernum which says everything really.

There's no game like Geneforge on the market today and yet the more generic option is the one viewed as better. Can anyone sane publish new, original products when everyone and their mother wants generic and boring?
 

rezaf

Cipher
Joined
Jan 26, 2015
Messages
650
I'm frustrated because Vogel not only fails to see the obvious, but he says that "He's old, tired and it's not worth the effort."

Just a side remark: In that interview, didn't he say he soonish wants to make a new game in a new universe running on a new engine? (BEFORE a Geneforge remake!)
 

Pope Amole II

Nerd Commando Game Studios
Developer
Joined
Mar 1, 2012
Messages
2,052
Sounds simple enough. Where's Geneforge Nexus?

Vogel's core fans are really hateful towards the idea of Geneforge mods. And, I guess, for other games too - considering Vogel's stuff is pretty much a mod of itself, they think that will scare away the potential customers. Like, people will have free unofficial mods so why would they pay for official ones?
 

mondblut

Arcane
Joined
Aug 10, 2005
Messages
22,205
Location
Ingrija
Sounds simple enough. Where's Geneforge Nexus?

Vogel's core fans are really hateful towards the idea of Geneforge mods. And, I guess, for other games too - considering Vogel's stuff is pretty much a mod of itself, they think that will scare away the potential customers. Like, people will have free unofficial mods so why would they pay for official ones?

No wonder he hated making Blades of Avernum. He must have felt he's robbing himself of his bread with every line of code :lol:
 
Self-Ejected

supervoid

Self-Ejected
Joined
Oct 9, 2014
Messages
1,076
Sounds simple enough. Where's Geneforge Nexus?

Vogel's core fans are really hateful towards the idea of Geneforge mods. And, I guess, for other games too - considering Vogel's stuff is pretty much a mod of itself, they think that will scare away the potential customers. Like, people will have free unofficial mods so why would they pay for official ones?

This totally convinced me to make Geneforge graphic enhancement mod assets pack.
 

Lhynn

Arcane
Joined
Aug 28, 2013
Messages
9,823
Sounds simple enough. Where's Geneforge Nexus?

Vogel's core fans are really hateful towards the idea of Geneforge mods. And, I guess, for other games too - considering Vogel's stuff is pretty much a mod of itself, they think that will scare away the potential customers. Like, people will have free unofficial mods so why would they pay for official ones?

No wonder he hated making Blades of Avernum. He must have felt he's robbing himself of his bread with every line of code :lol:
I guess? thats not how it works tho. Truth is theres nothing better for a game than having a community willing to mod it and play with it, its how it stays relevant and fresh.
 

mondblut

Arcane
Joined
Aug 10, 2005
Messages
22,205
Location
Ingrija
I guess? thats not how it works tho. Truth is theres nothing better for a game than having a community willing to mod it and play with it, its how it stays relevant and fresh.

You don't want your games staying relevant and fresh when your business model is based on cloning and remaking them faster than people could complete them :lol:
 

Lhynn

Arcane
Joined
Aug 28, 2013
Messages
9,823
I guess? thats not how it works tho. Truth is theres nothing better for a game than having a community willing to mod it and play with it, its how it stays relevant and fresh.

You don't want your games staying relevant and fresh when your business model is based on cloning and remaking them faster than people could complete them :lol:
Good point.
 
Joined
Mar 28, 2014
Messages
4,189
RPG Wokedex Strap Yourselves In
It's funny that Vogel accuses codex of hurting sales of his games since without the Codex assuring me that these are real RPGs and not some low-effort joke games I'd never ever buy any of them. I remember my first contact with his games. I was a teenager and the demo of one of them version was on the CD of a gaming magazine. I've installed it, saw a bit overcomplicated party selection menu, realized that there is no walking animation, then I've realized that putting on different armors doesn't alter the look of the characters, decided that it's some amateurish game I shouldn't waste my time on and forgot about it before finding it again on Codex years later.
 

Mustawd

Guest
It's funny that Vogel accuses codex of hurting sales of his games since without the Codex assuring me that these are real RPGs and not some low-effort joke games I'd never ever buy any of them. I remember my first contact with his games. I was a teenager and the demo of one of them version was on the CD of a gaming magazine. I've installed it, saw a bit overcomplicated party selection menu, realized that there is no walking animation, then I've realized that putting on different armors doesn't alter the look of the characters, decided that it's some amateurish game I shouldn't waste my time on and forgot about it before finding it again on Codex years later.


What kills me was his retarted journal. Started taking my own notes after realizing it wasn't worth shit. But by that time I had spent so much time backtracking that i lost interest. That and the equally dumb interface making the playable screen so damn small.


Still, been thinking of picking it up once my job stop killing me hours-wise.
 

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