Interview Josh Sawyer Interview on IGN Unfiltered

[Infinitron]

Tags: Aliens: Crucible; Black Isle Studios; Fallout 3 (Van Buren); Fallout: New Vegas; Icewind Dale; Icewind Dale 2; Interplay; Josh Sawyer; Neverwinter Nights 2; Obsidian Entertainment; Pillars of Eternity; Pillars of Eternity II: Deadfire

Obsidian's Josh Sawyer is this month's guest on IGN Unfiltered, the long-form interview show hosted by IGN's Ryan McCaffrey. Feargus Urquhart was interviewed on the show last year, so this episode takes a more personal approach, with a focus on Josh's roots as a history graduate and tabletop gamer, his work on Van Buren at Interplay and Fallout: New Vegas at Obsidian, and the Kickstarting of Pillars of Eternity. There's also an interesting aside on the cancelled Aliens: Crucible, which you can read about here. Here's the full video:

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Near the end of the interview, Josh says that he'd like to create a smaller, different sort of game after six years of working on the Pillars of Eternity franchise, but that first he's going to take a year off from directing projects and spend some time focusing on his duties as Obsidian's design director. Note however that the interview actually took place shortly before the release of Pillars of Eternity II, so that information might be out of date.

 

[Farewell into the night]

Josh is so smart. I think he is great dev and a human, but MCA is better. Always.

 

[CyberWhale]

Interviewer: So luck does help, doesn't it?
MJS: It's CRITICAL, I would say.

 

[Outlander]

I think he is great dev and a human

 

[Azalin]

I wonder if Roguey have the unpublished CDs of Josh's music performances from back in the day?

 

[Drowed]

I think he is great dev and a human

You mean he's not one of our reptilian overlords?

 

[Fenix]

So gib me wisdom of the day that Josh spoke to us.

Should we put more Negro and women in games and replace men with them?
Or should we start next phase and put dickgirls in games instead of men?

Do we have enough social justice or should we add more?

Should our protagonist be invald and cripple?

 

[Fenix]

Instead of giving me retarded you could just share the wisdom...

 

[Sordid MCA/Prosper Hybryd]

It's primarily about Sawyer's professional biography. He talks about his work at BlackIsle, Obsidian and even Midway. He talks about differences between cRPG and tabletop RPGs. He also talks about differences between working with a big publisher and doing a kickstarter game. Questions are p. good, Sawyer's answers are adequate and interesting even if not giving too much new info. When Sawyer discusses Aliens RPG, he actually indirectly acknowledges MCA's point that there were serious problems with how the development process was organized and managed at Obsidian. At the same time, when he talks about Feargus' role, he does it with an obvious respect for the man.

And no. The progressive bullshit wasn't discussed in this interview at all. So you can skip it completely, as it is obvious that it is the only thing that truly interests you.

 

[Kruno]

OUR GOD SPEAKS! We must listen and heed his infinite wisdom. IWD3 is coming, and in preparation we must burn the infidel defilers!

 

[frajaq]

Putting black people and women in video games is social justice now?



Did people complain to Rockstar Games when they made CJ the protagonist of GTA: SA?

 

[Aim1ess]

Putting black people and women in video games is social justice now?



Did people complain to Rockstar Games when they made CJ the protagonist of GTA: SA?

No, SJWs didn't exist then so SJW haters had no one to troll by being so edgy about saying nigger.

I like the bit around 13:00. I think this is probably why I like Obsidian(even the more maligned recent titles like Tyranny) over the vast majority of other RPGs. If I'm playing a premade character I just don't feel like its an RPG. I played Mass Effect, but really its an action/story/atmosphere game. New Deus Ex is Similar, and I get the same vibe with the Witcher as well. I can play a pre-made character in a game that isn't an RPG but when a game tells me that choices matter and its C&C its hard to play a premade character, even if it has real choices and well done reactivity. Its also one of the things that disappointed/frustrated me about D:OS 2 - it just didn't feel right playing one of the premades and not picking the character specific speech options. I mean the game is basically telling me "this is what this character would say/do" so at that point, why give me an option at all? The contrast between how I would develop the character and the way the character is developed in the parts here and there that I can't control is almost always jarring enough to destroy my immersion.

 

[Beastro]

And no. The progressive bullshit wasn't discussed in this interview at all. So you can skip it completely, as it is obvious that it is the only thing that truly interests you.

No, there's plenty of others itching to excoiate him for his RPG views.

 

[Invictus]

I have grown to appreciate Sawyer, he seems more interesting and articulate than 90% of the people who work in the industry and it is quite interesting how he aknowledged to sticking to Bethesda’s Fallout 3 crowd for New Vegas while trying to cater to a more high brow demographic with his mod.

As someone said in a youtube video; Sawyer is what you would get if you dipped Howard the Toad in the Super Mutant Baths, I truly hope he gets to make another Fallout in the future or a different style of game more aimed to his interests and likings

 

[Fenix]

as it is obvious that it is the only thing that truly interests you

You see, given how much Sawyer talked about this shit earlier, it is a surprise to hear from him something without that shitty agenda...
That's pretty much all.

Btw thank you for your post.

 

[Chaotic_Heretic]

Does this interview tackle Josh's autism and why he gets his panties in a hunch if a game ever becomes fun?

 

[Fenix]

Yeah, that would be pretty interesting if someone asked him about that - of course in a non offensive manner, from the POV Codex see that, how it was presented in PoE - where all calculations with damage were done to make everything identical in terms of damage.
It was obvious if you was reading patch notes.

 

[Bohrain]

Josh strikes me as a person who understands how things function, but is incapable of understanding what makes things fun.

 

[Mr. Magniloquent]

Does this interview tackle Josh's autism and why he gets his panties in a hunch if a game ever becomes fun?

While I agree with every amusing drop of bile you cast at him, I can't help but want to ask if you would please show the court on the doll where Josh Sawyer touched you. lol

 

[Invictus]

I think he doesn’t try to make the games boring but maybe in his view he is trying to make them equally fun; if each character class is equally viable to be useful maybe then they all are fun to play?
I don’t think he deliberately seeks to make things boring

 

[FeelTheRads]

if each character class is equally viable to be useful maybe then they all are fun to play?

They don't need to be equal to be fun. *

I don’t think he deliberately seeks to make things boring

It would be pretty counterproductive to do it deliberately.

The problem is that what he thinks is fun is not actually fun.

The even bigger problem is that dismisses actual fun stuff as "degenerate" and tries to implement stupid and backwards fixes for things that don't need fixing because he assumes people just think they are having fun while they're actually not if it's not his kind of fun.

Therefore he can go fuck himself. Not interested in playing games from someone who wants to force his preferences on me, and not interested in playing games where the system controls me more than I control it.


Edit: * For example, I'll never understand what's fun about having say a small weapons and an energy weapons build be equal by Sawyer's standards. That essentially means having energy weapons equivalents for the starting small weapons so the result is that the main difference is the model of the weapon you see on screen. What the fuck is fun about that?

 

[frajaq]

Josh for some reason looks at PoE 2 balance like he's working on a MOBA

If we can accept that at least we can wish he does it the Valve way instead of Riot Games way

 

[Invictus]

As I understand he doesn’t want the game system to be “broken” by overpowered items or abilities
He doesn’t get it how half of the fun in RPGs is looking for ways not of “breaking” the game per se but certainly getting an edge like an overpowered weapon, spell or strategy
I have know people like him who view that sort of thing as “breaking the fun”

 

[Fenix]

They don't need to be equal to be fun. *

Absolutely HUGE YES.

For me example is ToME4 which has many classes, many of them obviously weak in terms of power, but almost all somehow fun to play.

 

[Drowed]

If I'm playing a premade character I just don't feel like its an RPG.

I don't really get this. I mean, maybe because my first contact with RPGs was tabletop games, it's not uncommon for you to have to use pre-made characters, or at least with severe limitations on backstory/race/appearance. The GM won't always have the patience to come up with miraculous explanations to fit your paladin/bard half-orc or whatever into the setting. The most common thing in my experience is that we have a general idea of the starting point of the campaign (for example, "you're all soldiers of an elite group of the kingdom X") and was our responsibility to create a story that fit the context of the adventure, and the GM obviously had the veto power. Sometimes I even got pre-made characters already planned for the adventure.

So I cannot really understand this idea that "an RPG is an RPG only when you can create your character". This was never part of the definition of tabletop RPGs, I don't see why it should be considered that way in CRPGs. Of course it's often interesting to be able to create your own character, but it is equally interesting to play characters that already have their own story and opinions. For me, those who feel the need to create their own characters aren't usually playing a character, but creating an avatar of themselves in the game and "interpreting" it.