Interview Matt Chat 443: Annie VanderMeer on Dead State

[Infinitron]

Tags: Annie VanderMeer; Dead State; DoubleBear Productions; Matt Barton

Here we go, the final episode of Matt Barton's interview with Annie VanderMeer. Only the first eight minutes or so are actually about Dead State. What went wrong with the game? Annie says it suffered from management issues at first, but that improved after DoubleBear hired a producer and they were eventually able to create new content at a good pace. The game's real problem is that the Torque engine was garbage and also that they made it too long. Still, she's proud of what they created. The rest of the episode consists of advice from Annie on how to break into indie game development and other such topics.

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The next (and final?) interview in the Matt Chat revival tour will be with former Obsidian and inXile game director Kevin Saunders. Since this episode was short, Matt attached a sneak preview of it at the end.

 

[smaug]

What is wrong with her(?) face?

 

[Outlander]

No eyebrows

 

[Ovplain]

That was terrible. 5 minutes on Dead State tops?

 

[A horse of course]

Sounds as if the game was crippled by two disastrous decisions made early on in development: Hiring South Americans, and listening to Vince's advice.

 

[Barbarian]

Why didn't this faggot interview Cleve after all?

 

[A horse of course]

Derailing the interview with questions about women in gaming was particularly stupid. Your audience is CRPG enthusiasts. Nobody wants to hear about women.

 

[Terra]

It is current year and the shadow of gamergate still lingers... in small, obscure, niche crpg gaming interviews on youtube.

 

[A horse of course]

I specifically got into CRPGs to avoid women. Judging by Matt's facial hair, he had the same idea.

 

[grimace]

Why didn't this faggot interview Cleve after all?

We would need to ask Cleve directly.

Perhaps the Codex could start a thread and compile a list of questions to submit to Cleve to answer in his own time if it suits him.

 

[Transfiguring Roar]

What is wrong with her(?) face?

If her name was Trannie Vandermeer, would that explain it?

 

[TheImplodingVoice]

She looks more and more like a male to female trans person every time I see her

 

[Deleted Member 22431]

Derailing the interview with questions about women in gaming was particularly stupid. Your audience is CRPG enthusiasts. Nobody wants to hear about women.

He is trying to get some. You can criticize him for his desperation bad taste, but I bet he doesn't give a toss about feminism.

 

[Deleted Member 22431]

Anyway, sounds as if the game was crippled by two disastrous decisions made early on in development: Hiring South Americans, and listening to Vince's advice.

The two disastrous decisions were: (1) adding a billion of NPCs; (2) making the main quest too long. Both were Mitsoda's ideas. People like Vince or Oscar would never have such ludicrous ideas. That being said, I had lots of fun playing this game, which is much better than any of the other kickstarter projects.

 

[lightbane]

Don't forget shit mechanics and updates that broke the game, such as having zombies ninja-turn on you if you got too close in order to avoid cheap tactics, which broke some encounters including the tutorial battle, which talked about a tactic (sneaking on a zombie and bashing their head) no longer possible.
Also, having all doors locked with stupidly sturdy locks and hiding certain upgrades behind strict prerequisites, that forced your MC to specialize on science and lockpicking, or hope you found the extremely rare NPCs that covered these bases.
Oh, and the annoying music track that repeated itself forever. And preventing you from fixing the zombie virus because "muh grimdark".
What a disappointing game.

Lastly, Annie aged terribly, shame.

 

[A horse of course]

Don't forget shit mechanics and updates that broke the game, such as having zombies ninja-turn on you if you got too close in order to avoid cheap tactics, which broke some encounters including the tutorial battle, which talked about a tactic (sneaking on a zombie and bashing their head) no longer possible. .

Did this really happen? I wondered why the fuck the game told me to "slowly sneak up on zombies" and then they just automatically detect you when you try. I mean you quickly work out they only detect you within about 5 squares and just exploit that anyway, but still.

 

[Roguey]

Did this really happen? I wondered why the fuck the game told me to "slowly sneak up on zombies" and then they just automatically detect you when you try. I mean you quickly work out they only detect you within about 5 squares and just exploit that anyway, but still.

That kind of tactic trivialized a good portion of the game, so yes.

-Smarter AI! Medic, Guard, Grenadier, Sniper, and more - New AI behaviors and schemas exist for human enemies, making them more interesting and more challenging to fight! Enemies will notice your presence more quickly and fully utilize all of their tactical options, thrown weapons, and special attacks.

 

[A horse of course]

They should've reworded that in the tutorial then - pretty bad communication. No wonder their marriage failed.

 

[lightbane]

Don't forget shit mechanics and updates that broke the game, such as having zombies ninja-turn on you if you got too close in order to avoid cheap tactics, which broke some encounters including the tutorial battle, which talked about a tactic (sneaking on a zombie and bashing their head) no longer possible. .

Did this really happen? I wondered why the fuck the game told me to "slowly sneak up on zombies" and then they just automatically detect you when you try. I mean you quickly work out they only detect you within about 5 squares and just exploit that anyway, but still.

It's even worse on human enemies since these guys not only had a good detection range already, but the latest patch improved them to the point they can spot you before you even get to see them, getting into situations where you see floating text about someone complaining you're attacking them, despite not being able to see them in the map.

Or how attacking the police center was shown by the game as being a bad thing, despite how pretty much every police member had descriptive text such as "corrupt policeman", "evil policeman", etc. Attacking said place also triggered everyone in your base, including the mad bitch that's an obvious crooked criminal... Except for the stupid cop that you start the game with, even if you brought it to the damn place.
Lastly, the cripple guy was an obvious passive-aggressive mouthpiece for the writer that could one-shot you during cutscenes, but cannot be used in the field for reasons, despite having firearm skills.

 

[A horse of course]

The zombie virus would've been an interesting endgame project if you had enough high science survivors. Maybe move the meltdown warning to Day 60, but give you a reason to hang on in Splendid a bit longer trying to find missing CDC research or something. This would've also increased tensions in the shelter since a significant portion of the group would want to escape as soon as possible, not risk themselves further for the theoretical cure, and made the faction war a bigger concern since you needed some McGuffin from each of them.

 

[slowtard]

That's what Brian Mitsoda looks like after gender transition?

Not bad, actually. Not bad at all.