sawyer wants rpg to evolve

[Viata]

Tbh, what Sawyer is saying is that he wants to make new games without old fans of Obsidian complaining about their new games not being rpg. He wants to have the cake and eat it.

 

[Roguey]

Whose accounts are these?

 

[Viata]

What kind of retard is against Alien rpg? In fact, who is against different setting in rpg? That has nothing to do with traditionalist fans.

 

[IHaveHugeNick]

Hold on a minute, I'm not sure why there's 20 pages of controversy over this.










Oh wait, I forget.
















Seriously though, he's not wrong. The RPG as a genre has became bloated, it doesn't know what it wants to be anymore.

And it's the traditionalist/hardcore demands that are bloating the games with often pointless features. T

he guy on the street wants RPG to have itemization and number crunching and stealth and traps and lockpicking and exploration and lore books and crafting and leveling and companions and alchemy and random encounters and quests and branching dialogues and reactivity and strong main plot and interesting combat and leveling and character development and handcrafted dungeons and world map travel and optimally he wants all of this to still be fun over multiple playthroughs.

It's like, nigga, stop. All this does is the games end up with 5000 half-assed features that only make it into the game because the older games had them.

There's a reason why Fallout 1 and PST are on the top of virtually everyone's list of best RPGs. And that's because while they had complexity, they were much tighter experience. Every feature was put there for a reason and that reason wasn't "everybody else also does this".

I think the best RPG of last couple of years has been This War of Mine. Small little game but it has focus. The setting was the real protagonist, and every feature that exist serves to make that protagonist much more compelling. It took some traditional RPG elements where they were helpful, and ditched the rest.

So absolutely think Sawyer is right. And if PoE is his weakest work, it's probably because he had to abide by the promise to try and recreate that traditional experience. Whereas with IWD and F:NV, he was given a specific formula and made it really tight.

I hope he gets to make his dream medieval turn-based RPG so we can see what he's really up to.

 

[Blakemoreland Hybrid Boss]

Whose accounts are these?

 

[Roguey]

What kind of retard is against Alien rpg? In fact, who is against different setting in rpg? That has nothing to do with traditionalist fans.

An Aliens setting doesn't follow the traditional RPG format (where you talk to NPCs in a hub, get quests from them, go off into a more hazardous area, come back, sell loot, turn in quests, repeat at the next hub)

 

[Infinitron]

Something to consider: It is possible that Sawyer's ire here is directed at publishers as well as gamers - or rather, at what the publishers think gamers want.

Maybe you know an Aliens RPG is fine, but SEGA clearly ended up being cagey about it.

 

[Blakemoreland Hybrid Boss]

I think the best RPG of last couple of years has been This War of Mine. Small little game but it has focus. The setting was the real protagonist, and every feature that exist serves to make that protagonist much more compelling. It took some traditional RPG elements where they were helpful, and ditched the rest.

So absolutely think Sawyer is right.

Sawyer is saying that cRPGs could grow by ignoring the knowledge acquired by their isometric history and praises Skyrim as an example of alternative, and you are defending him. Idiot.

And if PoE is his weakest work, it's probably because he had to abide by the promise to try and recreate that traditional experience. Whereas with IWD and F:NV, he was given a specific formula and made it really tight.

Traditional experience is bad, specific formula is good? Nigger, pleeeeeease. What he meant by traditional experience is stats, skills, character building, the kind of stuff that any intelligent player would expect from a cRPG.

I hope he gets to make his dream medieval turn-based RPG so we can see what he's really up to.

His dream game will suck because he doesn't understand what make good cRPGs tick, and no setting in the world can save a cRPG from shallow mechanics.

 

[Azarkon]

RPGs have already done this though. Age of Decadence in particular, recently, is about as radical a departure from "traditional" combat focused, Wizardry/D&D style RPG as you could get

Never going to understand this cult following AoD has. Its not as if it didnt make massive sacrifices make its visual novel/chose your own adventure gameplay possible.
Yeah, its impressive, but hopefully it doesnt inspire many people to do the same.

Eh. It was a sacrifice, yes. But it showed that it is very much a possibility to make a game that doesn't revolve around the basic premise of "make a character, do almost everything the game has to offer". Most RPGs limit the choices to make in a quest. Age of Decadence outright denies you the possibility to do a lot of its quests altogether.

I think AoD has to be praised as a successful experiment in cRPG circles. A game like it wouldn't sit well in the mainstream: people already dislike the idea of not being able to join all the factions in Skyrim, for instance.

Age of Decadence was a successful experiment in the sense that it showed spending 11 years to develop a game for grognards takes immense passion and dedication ... but has little pay off, ultimately, because those same grognards end up voting Underrail as game of the year in 2015. But it could have been worse, they could have voted Witcher 3 as best game in the last five years... Wait.

Objectively, Age of Decadence broke new ground. But did it break the right ground? That's the issue. I don't see anyone who's trying to follow in Age of Decadence's foot steps. The game didn't sell well enough and it took way too long to develop. It wasn't influential, in industry terms; it was niche. Among those who played, it may be remembered as a diamond in a sea of mediocrity. Problem is, not many people played it, and the design decisions seem specifically made to turn off all but devoted grognards who can reason about the game at an intellectual level. Most of the CRPG developers are probably aware of it, but I doubt they took away anything from it.

Getting back to Sawyer, I think this is precisely the outcome he's trying to avoid. Sawyer doesn't want to be known as the grognard guy. He wants to be the Ken Levine of CRPGs. The guy who's worshiped at GDCs and high-profile digital entertainment events. To him, evolving the genre is about making it more accessible, not less. That's why he wants grognards to stop being so conservative. It isn't about supporting a game like Age of Decadence. It's about supporting games that the GDC hipster crowd can get behind. Games like Braid, Bastion, or more recently, What Remains of Edith Finch, Night in the Woods, Divine Divinity: Original Sin. Even though those games didn't sell like big time commercial titles, they cause a stir among people of influence - ie game journalists, convention members, etc.

I am pretty sure that's the direction Obsidian is going towards with their new intellectual property. I'm pretty sure that's what they intend, when they say CRPGs need to evolve.

For Obsidian, grognards are niche, and in the wrong way: neither mainstream, nor cool enough to be hipsters.

 

[Blakemoreland Hybrid Boss]

What kind of retard is against Alien rpg? In fact, who is against different setting in rpg? That has nothing to do with traditionalist fans.

An Aliens setting doesn't follow the traditional RPG format (where you talk to NPCs in a hub, get quests from them, go off into a more hazardous area, come back, sell loot, turn in quests, repeat at the next hub)

True. It's not just a matter of choosing whatever setting it feels like, especially if you consider what kind of expectations and different audience this game would attract. There are constraints given your choice of gameplay, settings, and even camera.

 

[Viata]

What kind of retard is against Alien rpg? In fact, who is against different setting in rpg? That has nothing to do with traditionalist fans.

An Aliens setting doesn't follow the traditional RPG format (where you talk to NPCs in a hub, get quests from them, go off into a more hazardous area, come back, sell loot, turn in quests, repeat at the next hub)

Pretty sure you can do that even in an Alien setting(not implying they were aiming for that, but just saying it's not impossible).

but SEGA clearly ended up being cagey about it.

SEGA is not an rpg fan.

Sawyer's ire here is directed at publishers as well as gamers - or rather, at what the publishers think gamers want

Sawyer is complaining about RPG fans so that they can show to publisher that RPG fans will buy these evolved rpg and thus getting a publisher for their game? Wasn't kickstarter a way to not need publisher anymore?

 

[Blakemoreland Hybrid Boss]

Objectively, Age of Decadence broke new ground. But did it break the right ground? That's the issue. I don't see anyone who's trying to follow in Age of Decadence's foot steps. The game didn't sell well enough and it took way too long to develop. It wasn't influential, in industry terms; it was niche.

Age of Decadence was the first game made by a group of six people. That 11 years thing is a myth considered out of context. At least 4 of those 11 years of game development was spent as a part time hobby, with 3 people only--the rest of the team was brough together later on. Part of the team also worked on Dead State in the process, which is another cRPG. The game didn't have a publisher, known veterans of the industry, it was super hard for casual standards and it sold more than 120k units. What more do you want? So they not only managed to make a game that by all accounts is better than average, and some people even dare to say can even rival with the classics--you can easily google and find thousands of positive reviews on steam. But no, they must have failed because they also need to influence the whole industry? Who gives a fuck about that? Do you know who is influencing the industry? Bioware and Bethesda. You need to be obsessed about pedigree to bring the (in your opinion) perceived opinion of the decadent cRPG industry in this discussion. It doesn't matter anymore, it is all rotten. And what is all this condescending talk about experiment? It's a well thought out game, even better conceptualized than some experimental balance brought to us by supposed veterans of the industry.

Getting back to Sawyer, I think this is precisely the outcome he's trying to avoid. Sawyer doesn't want to be known as the grognard guy. He wants to the Ken Levine of CRPGs.

And he won't succeed because he doesn't have a big publisher to fund him, because Obsidian has a bad rep; and because he doesn't have the guts to risks and the vision to innovate. He is a mediocre individual, through and through. The only thing he has is the goodwill of a few hundred thousand grognards who are deluded enought to fund his BG clone. These niche players is all he has, and he better pray with fingers crossed that they will still enjoy those uninspired and forgetable shoveware that he keeps pushing in the game industry or his studio will have to close its doors. A few years from now a bunch of players will still be discussing and mentioning Age of Decadence. Obsidian will probably be out of the market by them, and PoE will only be remembered as a failed and experimental attempt to cash in on BG nostalgia.

 

[Ignatius Reilly]

Whose accounts are these?

A moron's.

 

[Azarkon]

Objectively, Age of Decadence broke new ground. But did it break the right ground? That's the issue. I don't see anyone who's trying to follow in Age of Decadence's foot steps. The game didn't sell well enough and it took way too long to develop. It wasn't influential, in industry terms; it was niche.

Age of Decadence was the first game made by a group of six people. That 11 years thing is a myth considered out of context. At least 4 of those 11 years of game development was spent as a part time hobby, with 3 people only--the rest of the team was brough together later on. Part of the team also worked on Dead State in the process, which is another cRPG. The game didn't have a publisher, known veterans of the industry, it was super hard for casual standards and it sold more than 120k units. What more do you want? So they not only managed to make a game that by all accounts is better than average, and some people even dare to say can even rival with the classics--you can easily google and find thousands of positive reviews on steam. But no, they must have failed because they also need to influence the whole industry? Who gives a fuck about that? Do you know who is influencing the industry? Bioware and Bethesda. You need to be obsessed about pedigree to bring the (in your opinion) perceived opinion of the decadent cRPG industry in this discussion. It doesn't matter anymore, it is all rotten. And what is all this condescending talk about experiment? It's a well thought out game, even better conceptualized than some experimental balance brought to us by supposed veterans of the industry.

In what CRPG circles was Age of Decadence considered a success - the hipster crowd that attends GDCs, gives talks in digital entertainment events, and sways the minds of investors? Or Codex grognards who have next to no influence within the industry and who Sawyer explicitly wants to get away from? You can have all the positive reviews in the world, but unless your game reaches the right people, or sells a million copies, it's not going to be considered an evolution of the genre. I'm not saying Age of Decadence isn't an excellent game. I am saying that it hasn't done anything to evolve the genre in the eyes of other developers. That's significant, in this context, because Sawyer is a developer, and he obviously doesn't think grognard games like Age of Decadence have evolved the genre.

And he won't succeed because he doesn't have a big publisher to fund him, because Obsidian has a bad rep; and because he doesn't have the guts to risks and the vision to innovate. He is a mediocre individual, through and through. The only thing he has is the goodwill of a few hundred thousand grognards who are deluded enought to fund his BG clone. These niche players is all he has, and he better pray with fingers crossed that they will still enjoy those uninspired and forgetable shoveware that he keeps pushing in the game industry or his studio will have to close its doors. A few years from now a bunch of players will still be discussing and mentioning Age of Decadence. Obsidian will probably be out of the market by them, and PoE will only be remembered as a failed and experimental attempt to cash in on BG nostalgia.

Who's more dangerous, a man with nothing to lose or a man with everything to lose? You need to put yourself in Sawyer's shoes. The guy's distanced himself from the Codex for a reason. He doesn't think there's a future here. He doesn't like how he's perceived.

 

[santino27]

I hope he gets to make his dream medieval turn-based RPG.

I hope so too. I have no interest in playing it, but I'd be more than happy to see what the rest of Obsidian could do while he's sequestered in his basement/bike shop working on that.

 

[Viata]

So his dream is to make a traditional RPG.

 

[felipepepe]

This is a very stupid debate.

He's stuck at Obsidian, forced to do big traditional RPGs that sell in the least innovative RPG company ever created. Meanwhile a bunch of indies out there make more innovative games in their first try than Sawyer did in 20 years. And his dream game is a TB Darklands...

FFS, Obsidian did Tyranny, an RPG with bold ideas but terrible execution due to being too tied to IE tropes. And now the fans are to blame? Fuck off.

And his argument is "Oh, but people were angry about Mass Effect at first". Yeah, and now it has become the most iconic RPG of the past decade. Innovation takes courage, you gotta lead by example, show people your vision. Look at WarFrame, they didn't go "oh man, we have stats, loot and level but people don't consider us an RPG, I think we should abandon the project...".

The real problem is that he wants to have the cake and eat it too - an innovative and bold game that pushes the medium forward, but it's also a risk-free slam-dunk that will draw publishers, please the marketing team and raise 5M on Kickstarter. Well, good luck with that.

 

[Blakemoreland Hybrid Boss]

In what CRPG circles was Age of Decadence considered a success - the hipster crowd that attends GDCs, gives talks in digital entertainment events, and sways the minds of investors? Or Codex grognards who have next to no influence within the industry and who Sawyer explicitly wants to get away from? You can have all the positive reviews in the world, but unless your game reaches the right people, or sells a million copies, it's not going to be considered an evolution of the genre. I'm not saying Age of Decadence isn't an excellent game. I am saying that it hasn't done anything to evolve the genre in the eyes of other developers. That's significant, in this context, because Sawyer is a developer, and he obviously doesn't think grognard games like Age of Decadence have evolved the genre.

You are even more pretentious and easily impressed by pedigree than I thought. We are talking about cRPGs. That videogame stuff that is sold online. Thank god there is nothing fancy and pompous such as cRPG circles. The closest thing you have are forums where a bunch of people with different tastes get together to talk about games, and in most cases they have no consensus about anything. You also have game journalists, but last time I checked they are not very bright. You also got your reasoning all messed up, because you are seeing things backwards. It’s not that the evolution of the genre need to achieve some sort of critical mass of millions. On the contrary, times changed and the evolution of the genre can only be brought by the indies, who are the only ones still willing to take risks, innovate or even maintain the traditional standards that were abandoned by (most?)medium and big studios. They will be the ones to release games like Battle Brothers and Underrail, or take risks with the likes of Disco Elysium or Stygian: Reign of the Old Ones. The genre as a whole is something abstract composed by knowledgable players (which includes developers as consumers), and anything beyond that is completely irrelevant. Besides, the fact alone that a developer is not willing to employ some of the design ideas does not tell anything about whether he liked them or not, because some developers are always trying to please a wider audience, and so they live a double life: what they enjoy and play it is not what they produce.

Who's more dangerous, a man with nothing to lose or a man with everything to lose? You need to put yourself in Sawyer's shoes. The guy's distanced himself from the Codex for a reason. He doesn't think there's a future here. He doesn't like how he's perceived.

I don’t think that a developer needs to post on the Codex, whether he is loved or hated. What gave you this absurd notion? This forum is a space in which players can share experiences and speak their minds. This forum is not intended to please, attract or repel developers. This forum wants what it wants, and it has a future because it provides valuable services.

 

[Glaucon]

Stats are not a necessary part of the RPG genre, but they're logistically and economically unavoidable if you want some form of deep, meaningful gameplay.

 

[Cael]

Whose accounts are these?

A moron's.

Not really. They are pointing out something that is a bit weird that I have noticed:

People sneer at RPGs or even novels using tropes, forgetting that tropes had to start from somewhere. Shamus famously and hilariously parodied this in this Lord of the Rings parody, in which the LotR characters are made out to be played by your typical RPG players. The very first strip: "They meet in a tavern? How cliché can you get???" forgetting that LotR more or less STARTED that trope.

Tropes are always involved, especially these days. Just take a look at TVTropes and look at the sheer number of tropes available. Whatever you come up with, whatever you do, someone will find it or something like it in that place, and you get the typical "how cliché" talk.

Forget looking for clichés. Just enjoy the ride and see where it takes you. You will find games and novels far more enjoyable that way. For example, an Eberron book I found rather enjoyable as a whodunit in Eberron is "Night of the Long Shadows", but in a review I read, someone was moaning about how many dwarves it had and how clichéd it was and how the author was trying to show his "diversity" creed by marginalising humans. Not one word about the plot and whether it was a good whodunit.

 

[Azarkon]

You are even more pretentious and easily impressed by pedigree than I thought. We are talking about cRPGs. That videogame stuff that is sold online. Thank god there is nothing fancy and pompous such as cRPG circles. The closest thing you have are forums where a bunch of people with different tastes get together to talk about games, and in most cases they have no consensus about anything. You also have game journalists, but last time I checked they are not very bright. You also got your reasoning all messed up, because you are seeing things backwards. It’s not that the evolution of the genre need to achieve some sort of critical mass of millions. On the contrary, times changed and the evolution of the genre can only be brought by the indies, who are the only ones still willing to take risks, innovate or even maintain the traditional standards that were abandoned by (most?)medium and big studios. They will be the ones to release games like Battle Brothers and Underrail, or take risks with the likes of Disco Elysium or Stygian: Reign of the Old Ones. The genre as a whole is something abstract composed by knowledgable players (which includes developers as consumers), and anything beyond that is completely irrelevant. Besides, the fact alone that a developer is not willing to employ some of the design ideas does not tell anything about whether he liked them or not, because some developers are always trying to please a wider audience, and so they live a double life: what they enjoy and play it is not what they produce.

This is not 1990 any more. Video game developers are no longer basement nerds providing for the enjoyment of other basement nerds. The industry's worth hundreds of billions. Fancy and pompous are how I'd describe most of the suits who walk through the corridors of GDC and E3. But that's not even what I'm talking about. Josh Sawyer isn't trying to win the accolades of Mike Morhaime or Andrew Wilson. He's trying to become more popular among the indie hipster developers and players with whom he hangs. Look at where Sawyer treads and who his social circles are, and you get a sense of whose approval he's seeking. Ultimately, game development today has become very like Silicon Valley - a culture of developers chasing each other's tails. The reason Age of Decadence isn't considered evolving the genre, is because Vince D. Weller isn't in on the culture. It has nothing to do with whether a game is indie or has mass appeal. There are games that are indie, but which decidedly fall into the hipster category - I've brought up examples; as opposed to the grognard sensibility that Age of Decadence and, to a lesser degree, Pillars of Eternity wears.

As for your comments on my evaluation of pedigree, I'll just say that you're wrong and you'd be wise to stop confusing my analysis of Sawyer with what I personally believe about games.

I don’t think that a developer needs to post on the Codex, whether he is loved or hated. What gave you this absurd notion? This forum is a space in which players can share experiences and speak their minds. This forum is not intended to please, attract or repel developers. This forum wants what it wants, and it has a future because it provides valuable services.

You say that, but Sawyer posts on plenty of forums. Just not this one. Why do you think that is? Again, look at his social circles. Look at what he's concerned with. It isn't difficult to understand why Sawyer doesn't see any evolution in the CRPG industry. It's because he's looking for a particular type of evolution - one that we don't represent.

 

[Blakemoreland Hybrid Boss]

Stats are not a necessary part of the RPG genre, but they're logistically and economically unavoidable if you want some form of deep, meaningful gameplay.

If you want to take this subject seriously you need to acknowledge that a cRPG is an attempt to implement a RPG in videogame format. This will include a model where actions of the player are governed by abilities and skills, namely, stats and skills. The rules of this world are the mechanics. Let’s assume this as a given. Like every game, it is an attempt to surpass an unnecessary challenge, so the challenge element is also non-negotiable—sorry experimental hipster artsy games. Ok, now it’s undeniable that is a social artefact and like in all artefacts, there are few properties that gravitates around it because they help it to achieve its function of modelling abilities and skills (character progression, SPs, itemisation, exploration, etc). There, now we have some provisional working notion to discuss and make judgement of values about cRPGs instead of following the usual heideggerian approach of believing the definition lies on the etymology of the words used in the RPG abbreviation or the irrationalist attitude of accepting every given classification of the industry at face value, which is far too corrupted by conflicts of interest and elementary confusions to be trusted.

 

[Sigourn]

I guarantee you you didn't do 90% of Fallout 2 or Arcanum in a single playthrough.

I honestly don't feel like digging through quest archives to check which ones I did and which ones I haven't. But I can tell you have gotten me wrong:

It's not only quest incompatible with each other (wasn't that what you were talking about, anyway?)

This is, for instance, a quest that automatically locks a different one. Like killing Gizmo or killing Killian. At the end of the days, it's two possible outcomes to one quest. And you can do it with an average character (not sure how it goes for 1 INT characters).

it's also quests or paths limited by your build. Like how, say, the way yo can find Vault 13 if you have a high Outdoorsman skill. Or, fuck, the mastery quests in Arcanum.

A path isn't a quest. It's just a path through a quest. I'm talking about many, many quests being locked out from the get go based on your character build and not depending on whether you choose to help that or this NPC.

So AoD upped the number of these... so what? Bigger number of scripts = revolutionary?

The idea that gated content is something to be encouraged (by taking it to a scale traditional cRPGs haven't taken it before), and actually doing it, is revolutionary. If you are saying Fallout 2 and Arcanum are like that, you are blatantly lying.

Here's some actual reactivity, which I keep mentioning: in Arcanum, buying a Charm scroll to cast on a guy and remove his armor to be able to kill him because I couldn't otherwise.

That's not what "reactivity" means, retard. Oh, the brilliant reactivity of Bethesda games: putting a bucket on people's heads and have them stand around like idiots while you steal their entire stock.

 

[Cael]

Stats are not a necessary part of the RPG genre...

Stats are part of every day life. I fail to see why it would not be a necessary part of any game that tries, no matter how thinly stretched, to emulate real life in any way.

For example: How much weight can you lift? It is a number at the end of the day. How far can you run before collapsing? A number. How many bullseyes can you hit at a range of 20m with a 10-shot rifle? A number.

The entire science of physics is full of these numbers that we call "stats" in a RPG.

Without stats to govern what our character can or cannot do, it would either be like two kids playing cowboys and Indians ("Bang! You're dead!" "No, I got you first!" "No, I did!" *fisticuffs*) or pure author fiat, and if the latter is the case, just go buy a novel instead.

 

[Blakemoreland Hybrid Boss]

This is not 1990 any more. Video game developers are no longer basement nerds providing for the enjoyment of other basement nerds. The industry's worth hundreds of billions. Fancy and pompous are how I'd describe most of the suits who walk through the corridors of GDC and E3.

That’s completely irrelevant to the issue and the issue is whether cRPGs should be designed in a different direction from what Sawyer believes to be a traditional mindset. If by traditional mindset he meant IE games, I think no one will dispute that. If by traditional mindset he meant a game governed by stats, skills and engrossing mechanics, he is completely wrong. The fact that causal gamers (wrongly) believe that cRPGs should be like FPSs because other unscrupulous developers built their expectations is irrelevant. The fact that they are relying on a business model that is based on the premise that they need to deliver IE clones for all the eternity is irrelevant.

Look at where Sawyer treads and who his social circles are, and you get a sense of whose approval he's seeking.

I don’t care, that’s irrelevant.

Ultimately, game development today has become very like Silicon Valley - a culture of developers chasing each other's tails. The reason Age of Decadence isn't considered evolving the genre, is because Vince D. Weller isn't in on the culture. It has nothing to do with whether a game is indie or has mass appeal. There are games that are indie, but which decidedly fall into the hipster category - I've brought up examples; as opposed to the grognard sensibility that Age of Decadence and, to a lesser degree, Pillars of Eternity wears.

You assume too much. You presume to know what every single cRPG developer thinks about that game. I know this is simple false because some of these veteran developers helped Age of Decadence with some visibility. Now that I think about it, I think that I first came across the game after reading a Fargo’s tweet. Some Obsidian developers praised the game on public, more than one time. So that “every cRPG developer despise ITS” narrative won’t fly, sorry.

You say that, but Sawyer posts on plenty of forums. Just not this one. Why do you think that is? Again, look at his social circles. Look at what he's concerned with. It isn't difficult to understand why Sawyer doesn't see any evolution in the CRPG industry. It's because he's looking for a particular type of evolution - one that we don't represent.

The only think that matters in this discussion is what make cRPGs tick. Sawyer’s forum’ habits are irrelevant.