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Your disrespectful attitude towards Cain, Boyarsky, Avellone has to stop

Vault Dweller

Commissar, Red Star Studio
Developer
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Vault Dweller

Me: Tim Cain is defending design practices that makes cRPG meaningless because he is selling himself and he should be ashamed of himself.
It's your conclusion that he's selling himself, not a fact. For the record, I think that games without stats aren't RPGs and it's sad that Tim Cain believes otherwise.

Another poster: He will earn no respect for his craft.

You: If his dumb down game is a hit, he will earn all the respect in the world.
My first post in this thread was a reply to the OP not some poster you were talking to. Anyway, my point is simple: different games have different audiences. It appears (since I haven't played the game yet) that Tim made a game for a different audience that would respect his bold 'we don't need no stinking stats' vision as much as we respected his Fallout and Arcanum vision, maybe even more. A loss for the hardcore community, but I stopped expecting a hardcore RPG from Obsidian a long time ago. Not because I'm that edgy but because I realize that they simply can't afford to make one. They don't sell enough to keep a company like Obsidian afloat.
 

Dawkinsfan69

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Stats are awful in rpgs. Every time it's this:
  1. Read some strategy guide to figure out what the fuck the stats even do, since the game never explains
  2. Dump all points into the one-two useful attributes for your character
  3. Ignore everything else
If you don't, congrats, your character sucks. And if you're playing an older game, congrats, you'll need to restart about 10 hours in once you hit a wall and can't progress because you didn't know that 8 of the 10 attributes are fucking useless.

If you're gonna balance the game around 3 specific archetypes just spare me the pain of needing a strategy guide and auto-stat my characters based on a class choice. Even in Skyrim, with only 3 choices to allocate stats, you're gonna be pretty upset as a magic user 30 hours into the game after you've put tons of points into magic and realize that your enchanted gear makes all spells free.
 

Bah

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I have to agree with VD here. My favorite band is Opeth. They completely changed their musical style, and while I don't outright despise their new style, and never choose to listen to it, there are lots of people that love it.

It is very common for artists and creative people to grow bored with what used to excite them. For Tim Cain that seems to be RPGs. Now he wants to make 3D/action/adventure games, and the 3d/action/adventure game crowd will probably love his games.
 

gestalt11

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Apr 4, 2015
Messages
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I love all 3 of them, even if they are dirty commies. However, Tim threw his fans under the bus with that presentation some years ago ("all that stuff you loved and supported us for was a mistake" would be a quick translation), and he still owes them an apology.

Other than that, they are 3 of the greatest, I love them, and want them here. But there is no love without hate, and they have to accept that there is going to be criticism too.

They need to get the fuck out of California (and Portland too), that place drives people insane. OW shows they simply can't make a good setting because they are too divorced from reality. Even (or maybe especially) actual commies like Prime Junta can smell the dissociation. I am not sure Avellone is that compromised but Cainarsky clearly are. They are stuck in a fantasy world of trite bullshit. Its impossible to make impactful (comedic or tragic) art when you are handicapped by that.
I'm not an American but it does seem that the crazies always come from California.

It may be hard to believe but Portland, Oregon is even worse.
 

Trashos

Arcane
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Dec 28, 2015
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That would be a pointless exercise, kinda like arguing who's the best game designer. Would Cain, Avellone, etc even be on any universally accepted top 10-15 list? No. Thus, we're talking about relatively small pools. Not surprisingly people who like games like Fallout, Torment, and Arcanum would think highly of people who designed them whereas people who favor different kinds of games (Bioware, Bethesda, etc) would think highly of their developers

I have answered this already. Competence hierarchies are not democratic processes. All audiences do not have the same significance. Have you seen Justin Bieber's fans at his concerts? They love him to death. They are millions. He is (or was, I don't follow him closely obviously) extremely successful. He has made loads of money. This doesn't mean a thing for his artistic quality or artistic integrity.

Here is what means something. When actual artists are given the dilemma "you either save Tool's music for future generations or Bieber's. Choose!", we all know what they are going to choose. (I am assuming here that said artists do not hate humanity)
Trying to make something good is a completely different process to trying to make something that sells. Come on, you know that already. At some point the compromises start, but all creators know the difference.

English has the word "sellout". My first language (Greek) has a word with the same meaning as well. Your original language probably has a word with the same meaning too. All or most languages have such a word. Why? Because that is not merely a Codex concept. Betraying all that is holy and good to earn success is and has always been a worldwide practice, known (even instinctively) by all.
 

Vault Dweller

Commissar, Red Star Studio
Developer
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Messages
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I have answered this already. Competence hierarchies are not democratic processes. All audiences do not have the same significance. Have you seen Justin Bieber's fans at his concerts? They love him to death. They are millions. He is (or was, I don't follow him closely obviously) extremely successful. He has made loads of money. This doesn't mean a thing for his artistic quality or artistic integrity.
We are talking about game design here, not art.

Here is what means something. When actual artists are given the dilemma "you either save Tool's music for future generations or Bieber's. Choose!", we all know what they are going to choose.
And if the choice isn't Tool vs Bieber but The Beatles vs Tool or Beethoven vs The Beatles?

English has the word "sellout". My first language (Greek) has a word with the same meaning as well. Your original language probably has a word with the same meaning too. All or most languages have such a word. Why? Because that is not merely a Codex concept. Betraying all that is holy and good to earn success is and has always been a worldwide practice, known (even instinctively) by all.
It's not that simple. We aren't talking about him choosing between success over principles here. He was tasked with making a Game That Sells. Neither Fallout nor Arcanum was such a game. Failure would mean layoffs. Let's also look at his post Troika's resume - fantasy MMO, Diablo 3 for Boyarsky. He could have said no and go back to some no-name MMO. A Fallout-like game was never in the cards. It died when Troika closed its doors.
 

Trashos

Arcane
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Messages
3,413
We are talking about game design here, not art.

What is the difference for our purposes? You are making something you know is good (ie, something you wish someone else had made for you) or you are making something that sells or a weighted combination of both.

And if the choice isn't Tool vs Bieber but The Beatles vs Tool or Beethoven vs The Beatles?

Beethoven, but why are we muddying the waters? What is Bethesda's contribution that is so worthwhile?
(you are unfair to the doctors, btw. BG2's mage duels are something special)

It's not that simple. We aren't talking about him choosing between success over principles here. He was tasked with making a Game That Sells. Neither Fallout nor Arcanum was such a game. Failure would mean layoffs. Let's also look at his post Troika's resume - fantasy MMO, Diablo 3 for Boyarsky. He could have said no and go back to some no-name MMO. A Fallout-like game was never in the cards. It died when Troika closed its doors.

I understand. I sell out every now and then myself. But I hold no delusions, I call it what it is. And I do not expect anyone of notice in my craft to respect my work while doing it.
 

barghwata

Savant
Joined
Sep 13, 2019
Messages
504
Stats are awful in rpgs. Every time it's this:
  1. Read some strategy guide to figure out what the fuck the stats even do, since the game never explains
  2. Dump all points into the one-two useful attributes for your character
  3. Ignore everything else
If you don't, congrats, your character sucks.

Haha sadly this is actually kind of true; this does happen in a lot of RPGs but it's more of a balance and encounter design problem then just a problem of stats being an inherently bad thing, there are several solutions to this issue:

Solution 1: minimise the complexity of character building as much as possible and keep only the essentials. Keep only the skills and stats that are actually useful and meaninful in the game and sacrifice all other cool concepts and skills for the sake of balance, now this solution of course is problematic since a big part of the fun in RPGs is spending hours building your character and trying different ideas, however it's also not fun to build a character that seemed viable only to find out that it sucks 15 hours into the game and having to do it all over again, i think saywer said it best "If something is required for viable play, why is it optional?".

Solution 2: help the player build characters that are more viable, either by outright giving them hints in-game or by dividing character progression to different types of skills and abilities to force the player into making more balanced and viable builds, for example have seperate types of Skill points for each type of skill (Combat SP for combat skills, Crafting SP for crafting skills, Social SP for social skills etc.....) that develop in parallel.

Solution 3: design encounters/dungeons/ levels etc... in a way where every build has at least one path or solution to advance using their respective attributes and skills sets, this can be very difficult to do depending on how many possible builds there are.

Solution 4: just look up a viable build on the internet and feel like a pussy for having to rely on other people to play a game and missing out on the fun of building your own character by yourself.
 

TheImplodingVoice

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I love all 3 of them, even if they are dirty commies. However, Tim threw his fans under the bus with that presentation some years ago ("all that stuff you loved and supported us for was a mistake" would be a quick translation), and he still owes them an apology.

Other than that, they are 3 of the greatest, I love them, and want them here. But there is no love without hate, and they have to accept that there is going to be criticism too.

They need to get the fuck out of California (and Portland too), that place drives people insane. OW shows they simply can't make a good setting because they are too divorced from reality. Even (or maybe especially) actual commies like Prime Junta can smell the dissociation. I am not sure Avellone is that compromised but Cainarsky clearly are. They are stuck in a fantasy world of trite bullshit. Its impossible to make impactful (comedic or tragic) art when you are handicapped by that.
I'm not an American but it does seem that the crazies always come from California.

It may be hard to believe but Portland, Oregon is even worse.
Why is that though. I thought it was a conservative state or place(Not American so I don't always know what is democrat or republican states). But there left wing Americans seems to be pretty fucking out of touch with reality. Even more so when they get involved with making games.
 
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Messages
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RPG Wokedex Strap Yourselves In
Bester
A noble effort, but creatives who once made good shit, but are now churning-out crap are universally shat on by everyone despite their previous achievements. It's not just the Codex, its the law of nature, you can't change it. Just look at what happened to George Lucas. He made the movies that are hundred times more significant than the collective effort of everyone who ever worked for Black Isle, yet he became a joke after prequels came out.
 
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Glop_dweller

Prophet
Joined
Sep 29, 2007
Messages
1,161
Stats are awful in rpgs. Every time it's this:
  1. Read some strategy guide to figure out what the fuck the stats even do, since the game never explains
  2. Dump all points into the one-two useful attributes for your character
  3. Ignore everything else
If you don't, congrats, your character sucks. And if you're playing an older game, congrats, you'll need to restart about 10 hours in once you hit a wall and can't progress because you didn't know that 8 of the 10 attributes are fucking useless.

Stats in RPGs are to reflect and indicate the character's personal characteristics to the game engine. There are RPGs where you can set your own stats (with no trade offs, or limits—shy of the min & max possible for each stat). The [usual] reason is to be able to faithfully input your PnP character. It is possible to have a character with all of their stats set to the lowest value. This is not a failing or flaw, it's simply deterministic. The weaker character would have a harder time of it.

You mention useless stats. Well strictly speaking, rolling a character similar to Seinfeld, as opposed to Beowulf would (and should) see that character's strengths be ill suited to a campaign centered around Braveheart style battles. It is a failing of campaign design when stats are unused; it's not a failure of the stat mechanic itself. The stats don't lie. In a game with multiple campaigns, the Seinfeld PC could win out over Beowulf in a tale of court intrigue rather than dragon slaying.

If you're gonna balance the game around 3 specific archetypes just spare me the pain of needing a strategy guide and auto-stat my characters based on a class choice.
The ostensibly better way [IMO] is to put stat minimums on the classes; before you can choose, you must meet the requirements. Darklands does this. However I am not in favor of this, because it prevents truly custom characters, and odd-ball characters. Right now I am running a Half-Orc spellcaster (of low intelligence), named 'Oz the all powerful', and I could not do that in a game that mandates a minimum intelligence above that of Half-Orcs—who are very ill suited as spellcasters.

Wanting the perfect stats (for convenience sake, or otherwise) is defeating the point of roleplaying; or how they would handle it (or fail at it). Fallout was good about ensuring multiple paths for characters of differing aptitudes. That's generally a good idea, but not a requirement IMO. Some quests should be impossible for some PCs; and this goes for all kinds possible in the game.
 
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Bester

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I don't think that "past their prime" can be applied to game design.
Past a prime can be expressed in different ways.

Indifference and lack of motivation in their case. Anyone can see that the writing in TOW is riddled with typical female fanfic issues - mary sue type of self inserts, combined with "cunning redhaired trolling" attitude of the main heroine. "I'll make WITTY jokes EVERY step of the way, troll the males haha!". It's typical poor man's writing.

They must have spotted it. But to actually go to Feargus and be like "oh man, bad news, we gotta fire all those whores" and then Feargus would be like "well OK, I'll do it for you, but then YOU gotta hire new ones" and then Cainarskies would have to dig through thousands of applicants, read their shit, oh my god. No. Better leave it as it is, cause I just don't care anymore.

I'm guessing the design was hit with something similar.

When you're an MMA practitioner like me, you gotta hit the gym every day. And you have a thousand reasons not to get into that car. But as long as you have one good reason to keep at it, you'll do it.
But for guys who've already been champions, not once, not twice, but many times, when they've already climbed that mountain..? To climb it again, they just don't have it in them anymore.

Call it what you will. I call it past their prime.
 
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Bester

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Also, to all the guys who missed my point, apparently I was too subtle?

What I'm trying to offer you with this thread is that people who expected a good game are f*cking r*tards. Apparently some thought this was an ode to Cainarskies? No, numbnuts. It was a message for you and a reflection on you.
 

Glop_dweller

Prophet
Joined
Sep 29, 2007
Messages
1,161
Past a prime can be expressed in different ways.

Indifference and lack of motivation in their case. Anyone can see that the writing in TOW is riddled with typical female fanfic issues - mary sue type of self inserts, combined with "cunning redhaired trolling" attitude of the main heroine. "I'll make WITTY jokes EVERY step of the way, troll the males haha!". It's typical poor man's writing.
Who are the writers, listed in the credits?
 

Commissar Draco

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Insert Title Here Strap Yourselves In Divinity: Original Sin Project: Eternity Torment: Tides of Numenera Wasteland 2 Divinity: Original Sin 2
So they made Falllout 4 but better good for them (and their bank accounts) still won't prevent me for calling them sellouts and cucks for letting SJW tumberines write their game. Not to mention this success was as much earned by Obsidian as it was made possible by Bethsesda finally making their fans piss of, even angry Joe agrees to this so it might be fluke the moment CD project Red or even Beth release semi competent ARPG the people like Bester who excuse devs on ground of their past glories are reason the genre declined as much.
 

Bester

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You know how they say in Hollywood you're only as good as your last movie? Well I think it's disrespectful. But you seem to have missed my point. I'm offering to you that their games shouldn't be played by their fans at all. You're being angry at senile people, comrade.
 

Bester

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So anyway, while I'm here, let me tell you how things are going with my studio.

So I'm in the process of hiring a writer.

I used one of those sites where regular people look for jobs and received over 150+ resumes in just one day. Mostly from script writers from bad TV series and various conspiracy theory historical TV programs. In the end I decided to go with a girl who writes crossover slash fanfiction about hockey players. She puts them into all kinds of settings, and they always fall in love with each other, homosexually of course. The erotic tension she creates is just right, I love it. If she writes for my studio, I think I'm in business.

Another idea that I had is this. If this project pans out and I can start putting an RPG studio together, I'm thinking of first trying our hand at rewriting Siege of Dragonspear as a mod. Completely rewrite the entirety of dialogues. Because the writing in SoD is targeted at the SJW millenial audience, while the original BGs were aimed at the boomer audience, and I think it's unfair. It's a good way to test the waters with a new team, see everyone's strengths and weaknesses, and it's a good way to announce oneself to the RPG audience, to show what we can do. What do you think?

Free idea to all the other RPG studios out there.
 
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Deleted Member 22431

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You know how they say in Hollywood you're only as good as your last movie? Well I think it's disrespectful. But you seem to have missed my point. I'm offering to you that their games shouldn't be played by their fans at all. You're being angry at senile people, comrade.
The more you and Vault Dweller keep shameless defending Tim Cain for his decadent behavior, the worse he looks. Keep talking. You are making people here hating him even more.
 

EverlastingLove

Learned
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Millions of people who loved Skyrim, Fallout 4, and can't wait to buy the next TES game will tell you that he's the best damn game designer there is.

They will tell you, that they love this Skyrim game but they have no idea who the hell this Todd guy is. They don't care. They just want to sit on their couch and play a game they remotely recognize.

Imagine a die-hard Bethesda fan who fucking loves their sandbox games. His name is Legion, btw. He doesn't like games like Fallout and Arcanum because they are too restrictive. He played Bethesda games for the last 20 years and thinks it's a pinnacle of gaming. Whom would he respect more, The Great Todd who makes his favourite games or the Troika founders?

There aren't many die-hard Bethesda fans. People used to buy their games, because there was no competition, developers used to think that multiplayer games are the future and Skyrim proved them wrong. And those people have no idea what's Troika, who's Todd and why are you even asking them this silly question ;)
 
Vatnik Wumao
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Bester
A noble effort, by creatives who once made good shit, but are now churning-out crap are universally shat on by everyone despite their previous achievements. It's not just the Codex, its the law of nature, you can't change it. Just look at what happened to George Lucas. He made the movies that are hundred times more significant than the collective effort of everyone who ever worked for Black Isle, yet he became a joke after prequels came out.
Eh, while there would be no Star Wars franchise without Lucas, there would've been mediocre-to-bad movies without the rest of the team reining him in. You can't do great stuff without a great lead, but you'd be just as fucked with a great lead all by himself. Even if Boyarski and the like would be given free rein, it'd still end up as shit if they'd have SJW retards to deal with instead of having likeminded people working under them to complement their vision and chisel the product.
 
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