People News Brian Mitsoda fired from Bloodlines 2

[jackofshadows]

Mitsoda likely saw a lot of problems with the original.

Not with BL1 but I was amazed how accurate he recognized all the issues of Dead State in a "what went wrong" section of this postmortem.

 

[mondblut]

- The project is over budget / behind schedule.
- PDX is pulling the plug and wants the game released asap.
- Ubisoft guy is brought in as a hired gun who doesn't give a shit about the game and will do whatever it takes to get it out the door, even though quality will inevitably suffer.
- Mitsoda actually cares about the project, so PDX sees him as an impediment to the new strategic direction and therefore decides to get rid of him.

That's the most likely explanation, of course. Bringing in an external auditor always means "the project is deep in shit, it needs to be salvaged in whatever form, and the heads will roll".

But it's also very boring. I really wish the game to flop hard, then mr. Mitsoda to come here and play MCA. "What are you doing, Brian?"

Fuck games, only drama matters.

 

[Quigs]

It's interesting from a fan patch perspective to have Mitsoda sitting on the sidelines this far before release. Intentions and cut content can be hard to uncover.

 

[Roguey]

For Bloodlines Mitsoda wasn't even the lead writer or anything. He was just credited as a writer/designer (although he was the first listed in the credits if that indicates anything about authority/leadership role), while there was a project lead and creative lead. Mitsoda was responsible for a much smaller percentage of the design choices for Bloodlines than Chris Avellone was for Planescape Torment.

While he wasn't in charge of dictating the plot, he was responsible for execution. He did the bulk of the writing.

As I've said, Beckett and Smiling Jack were White Wolf characters. As for developing the others, that was up to the writer/designers. I wrote over seventy of them, including LaCroix, Gary, Jeanette and Therese, Nines, Damsel, Beckett, VV, Caine, Heather, Isaac, Chunk, Pisha, Mercurio, Larry, Samantha, Ji Wen Ja, Yukie, the blood dolls, the radio script, the news, and a lot of ambient stuff I think that covers the stuff I had the most fun with.

TJ Perillo wrote Jack, Ming, Skelter and a few other NPCs. Chad Moore wrote Strauss and wrote/edited some of the NPCs.

 

[Lord of Riva]

Well it's not like anything of value is lost here, the game will be shit with or without him.

 

[lukaszek]

deterministic system > RNG

 

[rusty_shackleford]

Mitsoda likely saw a lot of problems with the original.

Not with BL1 but I was amazed how accurate he recognized all the issues of Dead State in a "what went wrong" section of this postmortem.

While we were able to achieve an impressive scope for the project, we definitely had to work with the base of what we could afford. Most reviewers called us out on the lack of activity in the Shelter or the turn-based combat not being interesting enough, and while we would have liked to have done more with them, we simply did not have the budget to make those features happen.

meh, bullshit.
Underrail's combat(character building, etc.,) is way better, what kind of budget and team did it have?

Combat and character building in Dead State(to be clear here -- I'm not picking on Dead State, this applies to a lot of cRPGs) is subpar because it's obvious the designers never bothered to learn the fundamentals. It's like trying to draw lifelike figures without even studying anatomy but just guessing. They did a rough approximation of what they think it should look like.

Honestly, it's sort of ridiculous how he seems OK with just having bad combat. It's like an FPS having bad shooting mechanics and the designers saying "well, our priorities were elsewhere!"

 

[Hellion]

Perhaps Brian angered Paradox management because he refused to participate in actions such as



https://she-makes-games.paradoxinteractive.com/

 

[jackofshadows]

Underrail's combat(character building, etc.,) is way better, what kind of budget and team did it have?

Combat and character building in Dead State(to be clear here -- I'm not picking on Dead State, this applies to a lot of cRPGs) is subpar because it's obvious the designers never bothered to learn the fundamentals. It's like trying to draw lifelike figures without even studying anatomy but just guessing. They did a rough approximation of what they think it should look like.

Honestly, it's sort of ridiculous how he seems OK with just having bad combat. It's like an FPS having bad shooting mechanics and the designers saying "well, our priorities were elsewhere!"

You're right but Underrail is a combat-focused game while Dead State is not. I'm aware that it might not look like it at the end but I assume it was in a Brian's mind beforehand. Just one of the "three key components". And his idea to make combat more interesting to just throw more "features" in it is kinda ridiculous but eh, what can you do. His explanation sucks here but he still recognize the flaw anyway.

What is more curious for me is how exactly he explained production issues considering the fact that the game was quite ambitious and the scope was big: remote work with unexpirienced members with a shitty tools at their disposal. Sounds horrific tbh and yet they delivered some product (I'm also beleive that game was passable and even worth playthrough).

 

[rusty_shackleford]

(I'm also beleive that game was passable and even worth playthrough).

It's somewhere between OK and good. The lack of base-building RPGs gives it a niche to fill which bumps it up a bit. The game has a yuge cast of NPCs with a lot of interactions between them, which is fairly unique outside of things like Bioware games.
If anything, the game's sales likely suffered due to it being released after the zombie genre was beaten to death. It probably would have done better in a Fallout/Wasteland-style setting.

 

[Tacgnol]

(I'm also beleive that game was passable and even worth playthrough).

It's somewhere between OK and good. The lack of base-building RPGs gives it a niche to fill which bumps it up a bit. The game has a yuge cast of NPCs with a lot of interactions between them, which is fairly unique outside of things like Bioware games.
If anything, the game's sales likely suffered due to it being released after the zombie genre was beaten to death. It probably would have done better in a Fallout/Wasteland-style setting.

It was pretty unpolished at release as well. It took them several patches to resolve issues.

 

[Grampy_Bone]

Pretty common these days for publishers to bring in 'fixers' at the last stage who go through the game with a knife and hack out all the content they can. 'Minimum Viable Product.'

Firing someone without cause usually means it's actionable, so everyone shuts their mouths to avoid a lawsuit. But someone will eventually talk.

 

[Kuattro]

I'd just like to quote Roguey from the main Bloodlines post:

Hm, last tweet from Hardsuit Labs HR





Fire Brian and then a week later put out a call for a systems designer. Additionally, looking for an experienced systems designer this late in development spells serious trouble. After four years, they should be finished with all that already and focusing on polish.



Annie stopped caring about her appearance, but she's biologically female.

Indeed, searching for a systems designer for a game that is about to enter its fifth development year does not indicate a game that just needs to cut some fat to be ready for release

 

[Zboj Lamignat]

Someone did step forward claiming that Brian did indeed touch some private parts.
Its just that as P(H)R person was typing explanation someone connected the dots that indeed it might not have happened. After all everyone is working from home due to pandemic

I know from a source he was sending everybody dicc pics. He got fired when it turned out the dicc was avelonne's.

 

[Mortmal]

Did he oppose ingame microtransactions? Paradox games are now built like a skeleton you flesh out with dlc and cosmetic at very high price. Game is taking too long not enough monetization, they dont need him for that , quite simple.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

unofficial patch DLC

 

[RobotSquirrel]

So basically Brian just repeated the same mistakes he made with Activision.
Except this time instead of doing Activisions "Just release it anyway regardless of how bad it is" more Paradox instead opted for "get the hell out we're assuming direct control!" even though lets face it Paradox has burned their own butts doing that too in the past.

I think its the same story again. Brian still to this day hasn't learned how to properly deal with the suits. I respect him for that because he is at least putting the quality of the work above but I can also condemn it for falling into the same trap again despite how disastrous the first games development was. Its obvious that the game is over budget and no where near done the exact same thing that happened to the first game.

It's a shame. Brian has had such bad luck most of his career. I feel bad for him especially because he is capable of making great things. But it must be frustrating constantly falling into the same trap over with publishers every single time.

Definitely feels like cutting their losses. No doubt this release will be rough just as the first games was. I think everyone has lost here real bad situation to be in.

 

[J1M]

The best you folks can hope for is a scenario where the game's narrative is complete and they are having trouble with the technical aspect of a multiplatform release.

If you assume the above is true, here's how you explain the other things:
-They weren't ready to launch before Cyberpunk and with that pushed to November there's no viable 2020 release date.
-Some staff were dropped to cut costs.
-The artists and level designers were retained to work on DLC.
-The Ubisoft franchise man was brought in because someone is deluded enough to think they can make Bloodlines DLC into a yearly release like Far Cry.

 

[Tacgnol]

unofficial patch DLC

Just imagine the cash potential if they keep at it as long as Wesp has.

 

[Kuattro]

The best you folks can hope for is a scenario where the game's narrative is complete and they are having trouble with the technical aspect of a multiplatform release.

If you assume the above is true, here's how you explain the other things:
-They weren't ready to launch before Cyberpunk and with that pushed to November there's no viable 2020 release date.
-Some staff were dropped to cut costs.
-The artists and level designers were retained to work on DLC.
-The Ubisoft franchise man was brought in because someone is deluded enough to think they can make Bloodlines DLC into a yearly release like Far Cry.

This possibility has also been pointed to in the main game thread, and my answer is the same: Apart from artists and level designers, someone has to write for the DLC don't they? At least in a narrative heavy game.

 

[<3sRichardSimmons]

I like Bloodlines 1 as much as the next guy, but after Alpha Protocol and Dead State -edit: and let us not forget TToN!- (both of which I also actually like!) I'm pretty confused as to how the prevailing theory here is basically "BRIAN MITSODA DID NOTHING WRONG! IT'S A DEEP STATE CONSPIRACY!". Dude is a dumpsterfire fire, albeit a talented one.

Does anyone actually think Dead State is bad? I thought it was OK, just repetitive.
If you want to play a base-building RPG it's definitely one of the first I'd recommend.

As I said in the follow-up post, I totally agree it is OK. OK is not great though, or even a flawed gem; it’s flaws are substantial enough that I could not give it an unqualified recommendation (also how many base-building RPGs can you think of period? I can count em on one hand). Regardless though, it was pretty clearly mismanaged. They completely scrapped and restarted the entire project at least once iirc, and I think it’s development time totaled something like 8 years in total (obviously not in full-production the whole time, and made with a small and largely part-time team, but still). The guy just should not be a manager.

 

[J1M]

The best you folks can hope for is a scenario where the game's narrative is complete and they are having trouble with the technical aspect of a multiplatform release.

If you assume the above is true, here's how you explain the other things:
-They weren't ready to launch before Cyberpunk and with that pushed to November there's no viable 2020 release date.
-Some staff were dropped to cut costs.
-The artists and level designers were retained to work on DLC.
-The Ubisoft franchise man was brought in because someone is deluded enough to think they can make Bloodlines DLC into a yearly release like Far Cry.

This possibility has also been pointed to in the main game thread, and my answer is the same: Apart from artists and level designers, someone has to write for the DLC don't they? At least in a narrative heavy game.

Of course VP Kuattro, but do we need a Senior Narrative Writer to write a DLC?

 

[Dayyālu]

If anything, the game's sales likely suffered due to it being released after the zombie genre was beaten to death. It probably would have done better in a Fallout/Wasteland-style setting.

I've tried Dead State recently, and could not even force myself to play it.

The combat is boring (never manages to evolve properly and it's just..... there) and .... it's zombie drama. Already in the mid 10s it was a genre beyond stale and boring, and nothing in Dead State goes beyond the usual zombie cliches. In 2019 trying to play it was almost painful because, seriously, Standard Zombie Narrative And Drama in 2019 is borderline painful. Doesn't help that the characters are Standard Zombie Drama characters and we have seen it all dozens of times.

So, the game isn't pretty, the combat is boring, the setting is a net negative because it's not unoriginal, it's actively tired.... it's probably a excellent example of utter mediocrity thrown out far too late.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

also how many base-building RPGs can you think of period?

Ahem

 

[<3sRichardSimmons]

also how many base-building RPGs can you think of period?

Ahem

Oh nice! I missed that thread!