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

Deleted Member 22431

Guest
He tried once and in the end had to close the studio and lay off people, which had to be a very painful experience. You can't blame him for not wanting to go through this experience again. While we all applaud Ziets for leaving and co-starting his own studio, it's a gamble (and the more people they get on aboard, the bigger the gamble).
Times changed. For instance, he didn’t have steam back then. Besides, it is one thing to adopt modern gaming measures to pay rent, it is another to advise other people to do the same as good design. That's the kind of talk and bad influence we don't need in the medium.
 

Glop_dweller

Prophet
Joined
Sep 29, 2007
Messages
1,164
If Troika reformed—and added MCA... Would you (anyone here) line up to buy their first RPG sight unseen?

I would (at least for the first one). I did this for InXile [thrice], and was disappointed each time. It won't happen again (the sight unseen part), but I will still offer good developers the benefit of the doubt at least once.
 

Vault Dweller

Commissar, Red Star Studio
Developer
Joined
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Messages
28,024
It was also glorious real-time heroic fantasy with flashy spells and not some obsolete turn-based shite where you play a loser who drew the short straw.
Realtime heroic fantasy is older than most turn based [computer] games. Turn based is neither obsolete, nor shite. Realtime and Turn Based do not compete (except for sales), and neither surpasses the other at offering the other's intended experience.
Obviously, TB is neither obsolete nor shite but that's how it's been presented for years after Bioware started making RT RPGs. Suddenly, that's how RPGs were meant to be played, TB was obsolete or outdated, result of technological limitations, and other drivel.

He tried once and in the end had to close the studio and lay off people, which had to be a very painful experience. You can't blame him for not wanting to go through this experience again. While we all applaud Ziets for leaving and co-starting his own studio, it's a gamble (and the more people they get on aboard, the bigger the gamble).
Times changed. For instance, he didn’t have steam back then. Besides, it is one thing to adopt modern gaming measures to pay rent, it is another to advise other people to do the same as good design. That's the kind of talk and bad influence we don't need in the medium.
Steam helps but the main obstacle is still the same - funding. If you have 15-20 people working full time, you need money, lots of it, which means you need a publisher, which means you need to fork over 30-70% of your sales plus the rights. Arcanum's team was 20-25 people, iirc. As for advising people, it's easy to see why he wouldn't advise anyone to make games like Arcanum.
 

Trashos

Arcane
Joined
Dec 28, 2015
Messages
3,413
Obsidian isn't Interplay which could afford to keep afloat an entire RPG division and it isn't Troika which took creative risks and lost. They have to make Games That Sell enough to support two hundred employees, which requires a very different approach.

All right, but that gets you money, not respect for your craft. Which is the point here.
 

Riddler

Arcane
Patron
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Messages
2,353
Bubbles In Memoria
I'm not sure I'm really even disappointed in Cainarsky for TOW, I'm disappointed in Obsidian.

There obviously are some good ideas there, both on the mechanical side of things and (some of) the art direction.

What is disappointing is the god-awful writing, both the characters and how the concept of the world is actualised.

I'm not sure what their budget was here but it probably was pretty small, which means limited content and a lot of shortcuts. It does not mean shit writing.

Obsidian had one saving grace throughout the years that saved otherwise subpar games and that was their writing. Now they've improved everything to a mediocre level but the writing has gone through the floor. I'm not interested in playing games with mediocre gameplay and production values, when they have shit writing.

I just don't see myself being interested in another Obsidian game, regardless of who leads it. Cainarsky may or may not still have it but who cares? They are at a company that only has the capacity to create mediocrity.
 
Last edited:

Ravness

Educated
Joined
Mar 16, 2017
Messages
53
Obsidian needs to get new writers, Pillars of eternity was just bad and The Outerworlds was okay to me but you can see that the writing quality is a shadow of its former self
 

Vault Dweller

Commissar, Red Star Studio
Developer
Joined
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Messages
28,024
Obsidian isn't Interplay which could afford to keep afloat an entire RPG division and it isn't Troika which took creative risks and lost. They have to make Games That Sell enough to support two hundred employees, which requires a very different approach.

All right, but that gets you money, not respect for your craft. Which is the point here.
Well, this pile of money didn't fall from the sky, did it? It came from satisfied console players.
https://www.metacritic.com/game/playstation-4/the-outer-worlds

Look at Todd Howard. Does he deserve respect for his craft? Depends on whom you ask because RPG means different things to different people. 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. Similarly, if the Outer World is successful (and it hasn't even hit Steam yet), then Tim & Co will get all the respect for their craft they can handle.
 

Will Zurmacht

Educated
Joined
Nov 5, 2019
Messages
59
RPG Fan said:
The Outer Worlds is a triumph for Obsidian Entertainment and AA games in general. They set out to create a successor to New Vegas and succeeded on every conceivable level. Every mechanic I loved from that game, including the stunningly robust faction system, has been taken to new heights. Sure, the world isn't quite as big as New Vegas, but with the almost-limitless choices the game offers you, it feels just as massive.
TOW reviews are truly the gift that keeps on giving. I encourage anyone having a bad week to skim over these comedy goldmines.
 

S.torch

Arbiter
Joined
Jan 4, 2019
Messages
938
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.

Millions of sales =/ Millions of people loving the game, or respecting you. Many people bought Fallout 4, but they despised it, both on consoles and on PC.
https://www.metacritic.com/game/playstation-4/fallout-4
https://www.metacritic.com/game/pc/fallout-4

Many people can buy a game only for the name it represents, but then despised it if the game is bad. And that will reflect itself in the future of the studio.
 

Viata

Arcane
Joined
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Messages
9,885
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Water Play Catarinense
came as the result of the whole team who worked on them
*IE. You need the whole Voltron Force to assemble him, not just a leg and an arm.
I'm pretty sure this was confirmed when those old fags(not the ones this thread is talking about) decided to make new games and asked the fans to kickstarter them. Not a single game as good as the old ones because it was not the same team, just one(usually the game designer/director).
 
Joined
Mar 14, 2012
Messages
1,464
Divinity: Original Sin Torment: Tides of Numenera Pathfinder: Kingmaker Pathfinder: Wrath
3hciiv.jpg
 

Vault Dweller

Commissar, Red Star Studio
Developer
Joined
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Messages
28,024
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.

Millions of sales =/ Millions of people loving the game, or respecting you. Many people bought Fallout 4, but they despised it, both on consoles and on PC. ... Many people can buy a game only for the name it represents, but then despised it if the game is bad. And that will reflect itself in the future of the studio.
Let's ask Wiki:

Oblivion: ...had shipped 1.7 million copies by April 10, 2006, sold over 3 million copies by January 2007, and over 3.5 million by November 2011.

Skyrim: At 20 Million Copies Sold, Skyrim Is in the Top 20 Bestselling Games of All Time.

Fallout 3: In November 2015, Electronic Entertainment Design and Research, a market research firm, estimated that the game had sold 12.4 million copies worldwide.

Fallout 4: Bethesda's Fallout 4 sold 12 million copies and generated over $750 million in its first 24 hours at retail.


You can say a lot of things about Bethesda but the fact that it's one of the most commercially successful studios (or that there's a very strong demand for their sandbox games) is undeniable. I wouldn't worry about their future.
 

Trashos

Arcane
Joined
Dec 28, 2015
Messages
3,413
Well, this pile of money didn't fall from the sky, did it? It came from satisfied console players.
https://www.metacritic.com/game/playstation-4/the-outer-worlds

Look at Todd Howard. Does he deserve respect for his craft? Depends on whom you ask because RPG means different things to different people. 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. Similarly, if the Outer World is successful (and it hasn't even hit Steam yet), then Tim & Co will get all the respect for their craft they can handle.

OK, then, let's argue whether Stanley Kubrick or Michael Bay deserves more respect for their craft.

- Buying someone's game doesn't necessarily mean you respect them. I doubt that people who treat games as time wasters hold much respect for the creators, and mass market games have mostly such players. But sure, there are still people who love Todd's games, so let's go to...

- Competence hierarchies are not a democratic process. No musician or serious fan of music respects Justin Bieber as much as the band Tool. Obviously, we can apply this logic to RPGs too.

So no, Todd does not deserve the same respect as the trio discussed ITT for his game making craft. If, on the other hand, we focus on his money making ability, a different competence hierarchy than the one we have been discussing here, then sure, he beats their ass. But my main interest is not who is making more money.
 
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RPG Wokedex Strap Yourselves In
Trashos is correct. Forgettable trash is forgettable trash no matter how much it sells. If the game doesn't look like it worth be talking about 10 years from now there's no reason to care about it today.
 

Riddler

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Jan 5, 2009
Messages
2,353
Bubbles In Memoria
I think we are a bit hard on Todd here, he might not make games we like but he has revolutionised the genre of open world walking simulators multiple times.

Morrowind was a marvel of Peyote-fueled world-building.
Oblivion represented a huge step I graphical fidelity of open world games at the time, fallout 3 while being oblivion with guns was the first (successful) open world 3d shooter. Skyrim was a refined version of Oblivion.

Fallout 4 represents the first time the playerbase turned on them somewhat and we'll see if F76 was a one off Battleborn fiasco or if it presaged some sort of collapse at Bethesda.

I might only have enjoyed Morrowind but saying that Todd is only good at making money is unfair.
 

Vault Dweller

Commissar, Red Star Studio
Developer
Joined
Jan 7, 2003
Messages
28,024
OK, then, let's argue whether Stanley Kubrick or Michael Bay deserves more respect for their craft.
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.

- Buying someone's game doesn't necessarily mean you respect them. I doubt that people who treat games as time wasters hold much respect for the creators, and mass market games have mostly such players.
You doubt that the old Bioware crew (Baldur's Gate, Mass Effect, Jade Empire) was held in high regard by their core audience which dwarfs the Fallout/Arcanum audience?

So no, Todd does not deserve the same respect as the trio discussed ITT for his game making craft.
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?
 

Deleted Member 22431

Guest
That would be a pointless exercise... 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.
No, it isn’t. The difference is that fans of Fallout, Arcanum and Planescape: Torment can discuss and explain in detail why these games are good cRPGs. In fact, they can also play games like Skyrim and explain why they are inferior from a game design perspective. The fans of Skyrim, on the other hand, can’t play Fallout, Arcanum or Planescape, know nothing about the elements of cRPGs, etc. They are illiterate. Most of them barely remember the cRPGs they played because it is just another mindless form of cheap entertainment to eat and defecate.
 

Vault Dweller

Commissar, Red Star Studio
Developer
Joined
Jan 7, 2003
Messages
28,024
That would be a pointless exercise... 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.
No, it isn’t. The difference is that fans of Fallout, Arcanum and Planescape: Torment can discuss and explain in detail why these games are good cRPGs. In fact, they can also play games like Skyrim and explain why they are inferior from a game design perspective. The fans of Skyrim, on the other hand, can’t play Fallout, Arcanum or Planescape, know nothing about the elements of cRPGs, etc. They are illiterate. Most of them barely remember the cRPGs they played because it is just another mindless form of cheap entertainment to eat and defecate.
First, does it really matter why they like these games? Second, you can explain why you think these games are inferior but you won't convince anyone there because they value different design principles. Third, like I said earlier RPG means different things to different people. Even on the Codex. Since you often defend AoD (thank you, btw), you should know that better than anyone.
 

Deleted Member 22431

Guest
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.

You: This is understandable since Troika wasn’t successfully commercially.

Me: Troika failing and he wanting to make dumb down games for the mass market doesn’t mean that he is justified in defending that cRPGs should have no stats.

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.

It seems that we are talking past each other or you are just pretending to pay attention.
 

Deleted Member 22431

Guest
First, does it really matter why they like these games?
Of course it does. It shows whether they are knowledgeable enough about the medium or not. It’s like saying that the tastes of a sommelier and a layman are on the same level. They aren’t. One has better tastes than the other.

Second, you can explain why you think these games are inferior but you won't convince anyone there because they value different design principles.
Just because one decides to make shooters and call them cRPGs doesn’t mean that we are talking about cRPGs or that they are valuing different things in cRPGs. Besides, I can’t convince a flat earther that he is wrong will all the evidence in the world. Does it mean that this subject it’s subjective?

Third, like I said earlier RPG means different things to different people. Even on the Codex. Since you often defend AoD (thank you, btw), you should know that better than anyone.
Yet, the vast majority of knowledgable players are quick to identify a canon and make a negative consensus about popamole pseudo-cRPGs. In fact, most people here enjoy AoD. Its popularity is only growing.
 

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