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Development Info Josh Sawyer on the importance of real-world knowledge for game design

tuluse

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Serpent in the Staglands Divinity: Original Sin Project: Eternity Torment: Tides of Numenera Shadorwun: Hong Kong
I think the reasoning works like this. The player should have an interesting world to interact with, interesting things to, and interesting characters to meet. The best way to accomplish this is making all of that feel believable. However, it's still a "game" and as a game it should have fun and fair rules.
 

Zeriel

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I think the reasoning works like this. The player should have an interesting world to interact with, interesting things to, and interesting characters to meet. The best way to accomplish this is making all of that feel believable. However, it's still a "game" and as a game it should have fun and fair rules.

It's about as retarded as when authors who write anything but crime/courtroom novels say the same thing. "Boy, my real world experience in orcs really helped me write believable orcs."

The best way to write believable things is read and write a lot, not go surfing or hiking in the Andes or raping little kids in a basement in Memphis.
 

Zeriel

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I'm taking a big, steaming dump on Sawyer's reasoning, which the entire thread has been about.

That's how it relates to your post.

Hope that helps!
 

tuluse

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Serpent in the Staglands Divinity: Original Sin Project: Eternity Torment: Tides of Numenera Shadorwun: Hong Kong
I'm taking a big, steaming dump on Sawyer's reasoning, which the entire thread has been about.

That's how it relates to your post.

Hope that helps!
Well it's not about making Orcs realistically Orcish, but about modeling them from various human elements to make them feel like a believable culture.
 

Infinitron

I post news
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Codex Year of the Donut Serpent in the Staglands Dead State Divinity: Original Sin Project: Eternity Torment: Tides of Numenera Wasteland 2 Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 A Beautifully Desolate Campaign Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Pathfinder: Kingmaker Pathfinder: Wrath I'm very into cock and ball torture I helped put crap in Monomyth
I'm taking a big, steaming dump on Sawyer's reasoning, which the entire thread has been about.

Uh, no you aren't. He said that you should learn about the things you're writing about, and reading about them is one way of learning.
 

Zeriel

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Caesar's Legion actually happened, man. It was just a one-man legion. A Joshegion.
 
Self-Ejected

Excidium

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Reality is the best source of inspiration you can find. But to me it doesn't really matter how much your fiction is grounded in reality if the bulk of the game systems work in an unrealistic fashion.
 
Joined
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Glass Fields, Ruins of Old Iran
I think the reasoning works like this. The player should have an interesting world to interact with, interesting things to, and interesting characters to meet. The best way to accomplish this is making all of that feel believable. However, it's still a "game" and as a game it should have fun and fair rules.

It's about as retarded as when authors who write anything but crime/courtroom novels say the same thing. "Boy, my real world experience in orcs really helped me write believable orcs."

The best way to write believable things is read and write a lot, not go surfing or hiking in the Andes or raping little kids in a basement in Memphis.

His reasoning is that taking trips to deserts will help you make a more believable desert gameworld than someone who has read a lot about deserts.
 

PorkaMorka

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Feb 19, 2008
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5,090
The best way to write believable things is read and write a lot, not go surfing or hiking in the Andes or raping little kids in a basement in Memphis.

I'm not so sure about that. We're not talking about writing the curriculum for a survey course.

Let's say that you wanted to write about the "horrors of war". Trite topic, I know, but just go with it.

A guy who has experienced the horrors of war in real life and feels like he has something to say about it is probably better suited to write about it than someone who has no experience of the topic but has read a lot about it.

Perhaps you can't always get the full experience from text alone. Maybe sometimes you have to see the elephant to understand it.
 
Joined
Mar 27, 2013
Messages
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Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire
I think it depends.
If you want to have a setting which somehow is kind of rooted in the real world (like most Sci-Fi and most "classical Fantasy"), then Sawyer is right.
But I don't mind diving into places of complete crazyness; as long as they don't pretend to be "believeable". Some modern art (paintings, plays, movies etc.) works this way, and knowledge of the real world would help nothing to improve it.

The best way to write believable things is read and write a lot, not go surfing or hiking in the Andes or raping little kids in a basement in Memphis.
Well, raping little kids in a basement in Memphis might always help.
 

Ignatius Reilly

Scholar
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Jan 26, 2011
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Detroit
Does this mean Josh is thoroughly read up on rape?

It would make sense that he'd included rape in so many of his stories since throughout history it was pretty common. Genghis Khan raped several women in every village/city he pillaged, which was a lot. Studies have actually shown a large part of people in Asia have a bit of his DNA. http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2003/02/0214_030214_genghis.html

Yes, that's a serious answer to a non-serious question, lol Or maybe someone should just ask Josh on formspring why he always includes rape, but I suspect it has to do with his history background. In which every course at some point says, "And then there was rape."
 

Johannes

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casting coach
I think the reasoning works like this. The player should have an interesting world to interact with, interesting things to, and interesting characters to meet. The best way to accomplish this is making all of that feel believable. However, it's still a "game" and as a game it should have fun and fair rules.

It's about as retarded as when authors who write anything but crime/courtroom novels say the same thing. "Boy, my real world experience in orcs really helped me write believable orcs."

The best way to write believable things is read and write a lot, not go surfing or hiking in the Andes or raping little kids in a basement in Memphis.
My real world experience with niggers really helped me write believable orcs.
 

Mrowak

Arcane
Joined
Sep 26, 2008
Messages
3,947
Project: Eternity
I think the reasoning works like this. The player should have an interesting world to interact with, interesting things to, and interesting characters to meet. The best way to accomplish this is making all of that feel believable. However, it's still a "game" and as a game it should have fun and fair rules.

It's about as retarded as when authors who write anything but crime/courtroom novels say the same thing. "Boy, my real world experience in orcs really helped me write believable orcs."

The best way to write believable things is read and write a lot, not go surfing or hiking in the Andes or raping little kids in a basement in Memphis.
My real world experience with niggers really helped me write believable orcs.

Ironically, yes that the case (minus the niggers part). Real life experience with living people, including thugs and murderers will help you write your stereotypical orcs better than 30 years in basement "researching" the topic.
 

Roguey

Codex Staff
Staff Member
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May 29, 2010
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35,656
The best way to write believable things is read and write a lot, not go surfing or hiking in the Andes or raping little kids in a basement in Memphis.
One should not read fiction to write believable things because most fiction is trash.
 

Johannes

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casting coach
To write believable things, knowing your trash fiction well is often quite enough. So many common tropes exist in modern fiction that have little basis in reality, that they don't really hurt your immersion even if you know how the thing works in real life. Like an scene in an action movie doesn't have to be ultra realistic to be cool, even when there's no magic powers or the like at work.
 

Zeriel

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If anything, ultra realistic tends to be the opposite of cool, and even things that bill themselves as "realistic" often (always?) aren't.
 
Joined
Mar 27, 2013
Messages
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Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire
And again: it depends!
The Wire for example had an ultra realistic setting, and tried (at least the first two seasons) to be as realistic as possible. And I think that was the big strength of them.
So I don't think this generalisation ("ultra realistic tends to be the opposite of cool") is always correct.
 

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