Interview Neverwinter Nights 2 interview

[Vault Dweller]

Tags: J.E. Sawyer; Neverwinter Nights 2; Obsidian Entertainment

We asked Josh Sawyer a <a href=http://www.rpgcodex.com/content.php?id=147>few questions</a> about <a href=http://www.atari.com/nwn2/>Neverwinter Nights 2</a>:
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<blockquote><b>4. How would you evaluate the finished product? Any lessons learned there? What worked well, what worked ... uh, not so well? What was the game's biggest strength/weakness?</b>
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I think the game as released is a high 7, low 8 title. To be honest, the major issues are due to a lack of polish. There's certainly a lot of stuff in the game, but none of it really looks or feels great. At best, the controls and features feel good, at worst they feel terrible.
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For example, the camera. Programming got the camera in and fixed a number of its glaring problems, but for all the various camera modes you could run in, it was hard to find one that felt good. The toolset is also an appropriate example: highly functional, very powerful, not enjoyable or fast to use for many tasks.
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The biggest problems during development were an unrealistic scope and a lack of focus on quality/fun from the beginning. It's arguable that the former resulted in the latter. With D&D games, it's easy to become consumed by the idea of adding every feat, class, and race you can find in various books.</blockquote>It doesn't matter whether you agree with Josh or not, what matters is that he isn't afraid to speak his mind.

 

[Texas Red]

Sawyer got my respect. You dont see a developer actually giving a real *interview* every day.

I would like to add that I enjoyed the dialog options and moral choises in them. I was expecting less but got more. It didnt seem that people noticed this aspect of gameplay.

Also, to this day the "frustrating camera" remains a mystery to me. It was perfectly fine by me.

 

[Ladonna]

He has always been better than most in not talking shit. Has he ever been in charge of a games development right from the start (That was finished...)?

 

[Kingston]

At first I thought I was reading another fake interview because it seemed illogical that anybody from a gaming company would criticise their own games. Cool guy, especially saying "I think the game as released is a high 7, low 8 title. " instead of Pete Hines' "This is the greatest rpg evar!11 l00k at da scores! n0body wuz disapointed wiv it"

 

[ixg]

Nice to read an interview that doesn't have hype thrown in every other word.

 

[Amasius]

Nice to see some honest answers for a change. Good questions, good answers.

 

[Jora]

He has always been better than most in not talking shit. Has he ever been in charge of a games development right from the start (That was finished...)?

IWD2

 

[cutterjohn]

1. You took over Neverwinter Nights 2 development in March 2006

Who did they take over development from? (I didn't know that they had...)

It's really too bad that Obsidian didn't get the Fallout license, and that they're stuck working on some questionable(teh Alienz!!!1!!1ONE action, er RPG) projects, but from the sounds of the interview the NWN2 expansion might actually be worthwhile...

 

[MountainWest]

Wasn't it from Ferret Bodu... Bodoi... Bodouin or however the fuck he spells his name.

Ferret went to Bioware and is currently working on DA, if I remember correctly.

 

[Texas Red]

1. You took over Neverwinter Nights 2 development in March 2006

Who did they take over development from? (I didn't know that they had...)

It's really too bad that Obsidian didn't get the Fallout license, and that they're stuck working on some questionable(teh Alienz!!!1!!1ONE action, er RPG) projects, but from the sounds of the interview the NWN2 expansion might actually be worthwhile...

Except Sawyer is not the lead designer for the expansion anymore. The impression I got is that Obsidianware assembled a small leftover team to work on Mask of the Betrayer, while the real crew is thinking how to dumb down the Alien game so it would be fit for the consoles.

 

[cutterjohn]

At first I thought I was reading another fake interview because it seemed illogical that anybody from a gaming company would criticise their own games. Cool guy, especially saying "I think the game as released is a high 7, low 8 title. " instead of Pete Hines' "This is the greatest rpg evar!11 l00k at da scores! n0body wuz disapointed wiv it"

I felt kind of funny reading that, as that pegged exactly what I felt to be a fair rating of the game should've been after reading the 1up review debacles...

It was also kind of spooky how he apparently felt that the camera was asstacular as well, the poor implementation of the influence system. They should've just dumped the influence system over something else I'd bet, if we knew what they DID dump from the original design that they should've kept or adding in more side quests and/or "open" world. That or they could've spent the influence system time on polishing.

expanshun: Some how, I get the feeling that Obsidian is small enough that some of the better ones will keep an eye on it, regardless of whatever else they're doing.

 

[hoochimama]

I think the game as released is a high 7, low 8 title.

:shock:
Well from this and David Gaider's flame wars it seems pro devs feel confident that nobody reads the codex, maybe that could be used as bait and get them to come here and bitch about moronic publishers and target-audience-centric game design.

 

[Volourn]

"You dont see a developer actually giving a real *interview* every day."

Bull. They do a lot. You know, how quickly, Codexers forgtet other interviews given on this very site. Dumbass.


"I would like to add that I enjoyed the dialog options and moral choises in them. I was expecting less but got more. It didnt seem that people noticed this aspect of gameplay."

No, we noticed it. Thje only problem is that many times the dialogue options even when using skills doesnb
t change the results at all. This gets mixed reviews from me becaus eit's so uneven. At times, the skills use is impressive; at otehr times it's laughabale.


Anyways, the interview is great. I pretty much agree with Mr. Sawyer on his assessment of NWN2.

 

[Texas Red]

Other "interviews" on other sites are a joke. I bet the publishers write those themselves or at least ask to check over before anything gets put on the site. You are never able to ask anything *real* from those PR shit spinners. This Codex interview is real unlike the ones where Pete claims that everyone is happy with Oblivion and they got no negative feedback at all.

 

[Volourn]

Why did you fart?

 

[Roqua]

It was nice seeing open and honest answers, but the questions were lacking, or one question I should say. The games biggest flaw, super rediculously easy combat even on highest difficulty, wasn't addressed.

I would also like to ask why every game has so much loot that it becomes meaningless and not worth the time to upgrade.

Also on the flute quest, what the fuck.

The game, minus the combat, with about 1/100th the loot, would have been pretty good.

 

[Dhruin]

Great interview. Really enjoyed it.

 

[the_dagon]

nice interview.

the real interview to do would be the guy you all spit on for a while...

Oblivion lead designer...

 

[Astromarine]

they tried. some designers said sure, but Full Of Shit Hines blocked all attempts.

 

[Ellester]

a decent interview, a few more questions would have been nice. I like the fact that he wanted a little more openness to the game, that is my number one complaint. I never had a problem with the camera, so it was fine by me. And I agree on the fun factor, it's there sort of, but also not. And crafting sucked, I'm one of the 90% who wasn't interested in hording items to just craft.