Interview Someone Wants to Pick Warren Spector's Brain

[VentilatorOfDoom]

Tags: Fallout: New Vegas; Obsidian Entertainment

<p>... and with "someone" I mean Eric Beaumont from Obsidian Entertainment. The <strong>Fallout: New Vegas</strong> release date is drawing near and another <span style="text-decoration: line-through;">Bethesda</span> Obsidian developer <a href="http://bethblog.com/index.php/2010/10/07/inside-the-vault-obsidians-eric-beaumont/">gets an introduction</a> at the Bethblog.</p>
<blockquote>
<p><strong>As a game gets closer to release, do you have any tips for breaking in? Did modding games help you get started?</strong></p>
<p>I got into the industry the hard way&hellip;or the dumb-luck way maybe, so I might not be the best source for tips on this. I do have one bit of advice I might be able to pass along that came from one of my old leads (that I&rsquo;ve since adopted into my own approach when interviewing potential designers): Only hire people whose work you won&rsquo;t have to go back and fix later. The actual quote is a little more colorful (and a little less printable), but that&rsquo;s the essence. What that should mean to anyone who&rsquo;s trying to break into the industry is that you should be able to talk about the finer points of design and you should be able to demonstrate that you can design. Don&rsquo;t just talk about games that you like, but be able to say exactly why you like them. Don&rsquo;t just say you hate a game &ndash; say why you hate it and what you would do to fix it. (You also might want to do your homework and make sure that you aren&rsquo;t tearing apart a game that your interviewer(s) worked on!) Bring a working level you made, preferably built with a popular, modern game engine/editor (bonus points if it&rsquo;s from the same genre as the game you&rsquo;re applying for). Degrees in relevant fields and/or from a game design college don&rsquo;t hurt either, but they&rsquo;re also no guarantee if you can&rsquo;t survive the interview.</p>
<p><strong> </strong></p>
<p><strong>If you could pick someone&rsquo;s brain in the game industry, who would it be?</strong></p>
<p>Warren Spector. I love the games he&rsquo;s done and I&rsquo;ve always been inspired by his design philosophy. I read an article he wrote about how dialogue-trees in role-playing games haven&rsquo;t really changed or evolved since the beginning of the industry. At the end of the article he issued a challenge to everyone working in the industry to find a new way to convey dialogue in games. I&rsquo;ve spent the last few years struggling with that issue in the games that I&rsquo;ve designed. I don&rsquo;t have the magical answer yet, but it&rsquo;s led me to question the basic principles of design that I always took for granted before and for that I&rsquo;m grateful.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Spotted at: <a href="http://www.rpgwatch.com/#15912">RPGWatch</a></p>

 

[1eyedking]

Warrren Spector? Moar liek Warren Specturd. All the Jew did was copy Thief's design philosophy.

Whatever. On topic, I'm p. sure Fallout 3: New Vegas will suck.

 

[ghostdog]

1eyedking ? Moar liek 1eyedturd.

Whatever. On topic, I'm p. sure Fallout 3: New Vegas will suck.

 

[Arcanoix]

Don’t just talk about games that you like, but be able to say exactly why you like them. Don’t just say you hate a game – say why you hate it and what you would do to fix it. (You also might want to do your homework and make sure that you aren’t tearing apart a game that your interviewer(s) worked on!)

What if I was asked what changes I'd make to a game and I had to choose a game from the developer I'm interviewing with?

Just saying, it happens.

And why doesn't anything this guy say work for guys like - say - Qwinn, and Drogg? :/

Eh, too tired to really delve any deeper than that. I mean it's not rocket science - if anything it's the exact opposite - as you can be a complete twit (Todd Howard) and still somehow reach producer status.

And for the geniuses, i.e. Chris Metzen (pre-Knaak partnership), Tim Cain (pre MMO designer), Richard Garriot (pre-EA/Origin fallout), Rick Parks (Rest in Peace), Peter Molyneux (Bullfrog era), etc. and they get brainwashed and transformed into something they're not. And it pisses me off.

/Codexian on

give them valium. Lots of valium. HERP DERP.

 

[zeitgeist]

I read an article he wrote about how dialogue-trees in role-playing games haven’t really changed or evolved since the beginning of the industry.

Does anyone have a link to that article? I'd really like to read it, the premise sounds pretty silly.

 

[Roguey]

Apparently around 2007 he said "Branching tree conversations are still the state of the art, and that's pathetic." in a GameInformer print article and there's also this thing he wrote back in 1999: http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/3 ... php?page=1

No one has yet devised and/or implemented an artful, compelling, interesting, or believable conversation system in a computer RPG. That includes everything I've done and everything you've done. No one has come up with a system that -doesn't draw you out of the game world and remind you that you're just manipulating pixels on a screen.
...
Perhaps the best thing that can be said about conversation in computer gaming is that players have grown accustomed to inelegant, unrealistic, basically unbelievable systems and cardboard cut-out NPCs. Until someone comes up with something better, you can always fall back on convention, a fact that Doug and the System Shock team didn't consider very seriously. Players "get" branching-tree/keyword systems - they're so familiar with them that they -don't even think about them much anymore. And that's about the best that you can hope for - that conversation --won't drag players out of your carefully crafted alternate world too badly. I await the day when voice recognition, natural language processors, basic knowledge databases, and speech synthesis become realistic options.

I also particularly like the Codexian-before-it-existed sick burn that starts the article:

Look at the best RPGs of the last several years. As great as Diablo, Fallout, Daggerfall, and Might & Magic VI are, they really aren't anything that we couldn't have designed ten years ago. Do they represent significant advances over Wasteland or Ultima IV or the Underworld games? And were these older games striving for much more than a recreation of the tabletop role-playing experiences of their creators? It's as if we can't see beyond our early Dungeons & Dragons game experiences. It's time to move beyond simply borrowing game concepts and establish computer RPGs as an independent medium.

 

[Azrael the cat]

Don’t just talk about games that you like, but be able to say exactly why you like them. Don’t just say you hate a game – say why you hate it and what you would do to fix it. (You also might want to do your homework and make sure that you aren’t tearing apart a game that your interviewer(s) worked on!)

What if I was asked what changes I'd make to a game and I had to choose a game from the developer I'm interviewing with?

Just saying, it happens.

And why doesn't anything this guy say work for guys like - say - Qwinn, and Drogg? :/

Eh, too tired to really delve any deeper than that. I mean it's not rocket science - if anything it's the exact opposite - as you can be a complete twit (Todd Howard) and still somehow reach producer status.

And for the geniuses, i.e. Chris Metzen (pre-Knaak partnership), Tim Cain (pre MMO designer), Richard Garriot (pre-EA/Origin fallout), Rick Parks (Rest in Peace), Peter Molyneux (Bullfrog era), etc. and they get brainwashed and transformed into something they're not. And it pisses me off.

/Codexian on

give them valium. Lots of valium. HERP DERP.

In fairness, Spector is still sitting better than any of those folk. His 'decline' run only consisted of one game. The 2nd last AAA title he made was Deus Ex. With System Shock 2 and Ultima 7 part 2 coming before that, I'd say his past 4-5 games have been pretty awesome.

And at least with Invisible War, he didn't react to the criticism by going 'damn, we need to dumb things down even further'. Sure, he cut a pretty pitiful figure with his 'I just want people to recognise the scope of what I tried to achieve on that game, and I'll acknowledge that we got a lot wrong', but most developers don't even go that far.

 

[J1M]

Got into the industry the "old fashioned way". Does that mean blowjob or brother already employed in it?

 

[Archibald]

No one has yet devised and/or implemented an artful, compelling, interesting, or believable conversation system in a computer RPG. That includes everything I've done and everything you've done. No one has come up with a system that -doesn't draw you out of the game world and remind you that you're just manipulating pixels on a screen.
...
Perhaps the best thing that can be said about conversation in computer gaming is that players have grown accustomed to inelegant, unrealistic, basically unbelievable systems and cardboard cut-out NPCs. Until someone comes up with something better, you can always fall back on convention, a fact that Doug and the System Shock team didn't consider very seriously. Players "get" branching-tree/keyword systems - they're so familiar with them that they -don't even think about them much anymore. And that's about the best that you can hope for - that conversation --won't drag players out of your carefully crafted alternate world too badly. I await the day when voice recognition, natural language processors, basic knowledge databases, and speech synthesis become realistic options.

Roots of decline.

 

[Jaesun]

And at least with Invisible War, he didn't react to the criticism by going 'damn, we need to dumb things down even further'. Sure, he cut a pretty pitiful figure with his 'I just want people to recognise the scope of what I tried to achieve on that game, and I'll acknowledge that we got a lot wrong', but most developers don't even go that far.

He was only the Studio Director on IW, he was not the Producer and Project Director like he was on Deus Ex.

 

[Lyric Suite]

As far as i know, Spector is a producer, not a developer. So while he can be praised for bringing up talented people together and successfully release ambitious projects, i'm not sure why everybody considers him some sort of authority on game design.

 

[AnalogKid]

he issued a challenge to everyone working in the industry to find a new way to convey dialogue in games... I don’t have the magical answer yet...

You mean the magical answer isn't "streamlining" dialogue with "emotional stance" quick-time events where the player doesn't even know wtf he's about to say? How can that be? I thought for sure the ultimate answer to everything in modern games was: streamliner it!

 

[fizzelopeguss]

As far as i know, Spector is a producer, not a developer. So while he can be praised for bringing up talented people together and successfully release ambitious projects, i'm not sure why everybody considers him some sort of authority on game design.

http://www.mobygames.com/developer/shee ... perId,127/

i imagine he did a lot of donkey-work when he was first starting out.

 

[Sceptic]

As far as i know, Spector is a producer, not a developer. So while he can be praised for bringing up talented people together and successfully release ambitious projects, i'm not sure why everybody considers him some sort of authority on game design.

Because the former (bringing talented people together and releasing ambitious projects) require a very good eye for design, something Spector demonstrated many times in the 90's. See Ultima Underworld, the bastard child that no one at Origin cared about... other than Spector. He did this kind of thing several times with projects that were very bold and that more conservative or less gifted producers would've killed or ruined (System Shock and Thief most prominently).

 

[Lyric Suite]

As far as i know, Spector is a producer, not a developer. So while he can be praised for bringing up talented people together and successfully release ambitious projects, i'm not sure why everybody considers him some sort of authority on game design.

Because the former (bringing talented people together and releasing ambitious projects) require a very good eye for design, something Spector demonstrated many times in the 90's. See Ultima Underworld, the bastard child that no one at Origin cared about... other than Spector. He did this kind of thing several times with projects that were very bold and that more conservative or less gifted producers would've killed or ruined (System Shock and Thief most prominently).

Point taken. And that's a pretty impressive track record there. I wonder if the reason why he hasn't produced anything of note since Duex Ex has something to do with the lack of talented developers and increased corporate control more then any personal decline on his part.

 

[ArcturusXIV]

'Scuze me? Someone should pick Warren's brain OUT. He obviously thinks dumbing down games IZ TEH GOODZ DESIGN SKILLZ. Paul Neurath was the true brains of Looking Glass studios! But hey, those who think marketing > art get theirs! He's now doing EPIC L33t Design on Epic Mickey.

 

[Sceptic]

Point taken. And that's a pretty impressive track record there. I wonder if the reason why he hasn't produced anything of note since Duex Ex has something to do with the lack of talented developers and increased corporate control more then any personal decline on his part.

It could be this, or it could be that producers have less power than they used to, what with the hierarchy turning more and more towards the corporate side, so all big design decisions are handled by the suits and the producer has to live with it. Or... it could simply be that his skills have declined/adapted to the industry standards (redundancy, I know). Who knows.

 

[J1M]

And at least with Invisible War, he didn't react to the criticism by going 'damn, we need to dumb things down even further'. Sure, he cut a pretty pitiful figure with his 'I just want people to recognise the scope of what I tried to achieve on that game, and I'll acknowledge that we got a lot wrong', but most developers don't even go that far.

He was only the Studio Director on IW, he was not the Producer and Project Director like he was on Deus Ex.

*ONLY* studio director? This is a joke right? He promoted the guy who was in charge of DX2 after mentoring him. But more importantly, he was the one who decided to split the good people who worked on DX into two teams and instead of working on a DX sequel he attempted to make DX2 and Thief3 at the same time. In a new engine. For a new platform. And instructed his team to rewrite large portions of the graphics and sound engines.

It boggles the mind how you could think anyone has more responsibility for the failure of DX2 than him.

 

[ghostdog]

FFS stop the lies start the truths.

Deus Ex >>>>>>>>> Thief.

And that's 9 ">" FYI.

 

[spekkio]

FFS stop the lies start the truths.

Deus Ex >>>>>>>>> Thief.

And that's 9 ">" FYI.

No. Thief 1-2 are great climatic games with a little bit of "art" thrown in.
Desu Ex is just great game.



DX is great as an example of quality developing. But Thief is better as a game.

 

[ghostdog]

No it's not.

 

[spekkio]

You abandoned your TWO LPs so your opinion is invalid.



Of course it is.

But SS2 is EVEN better. :D

 

[ghostdog]

You abandoned your TWO LPs so your opinion is invalid.

 

[PorkaMorka]

First, there are branching-tree/keyword systems. ... In this system, players read or listen to a bit of dialogue "spoken" by an NPC and are then offered a number of response options (or are given the opportunity to type in whatever they want). Picking one of these options or typing in a likely keyword sends the NPC into another speech. Making a selection typically prevents the player from getting the information he or she would have gotten by picking another of the available response options. Eventually, the NPC runs out of things to say along a particular branch and the conversation ends, leaving the player either to start the whole conversation over and make different response option choices in an attempt to elicit additional information from the NPC, or to go talk to someone else.
...
The problem is that clicking through a bunch of conversation options doesn't feel much like a conversation - an interrogation, perhaps, but not a conversation. Additionally, keywords and branching trees turn the conversations themselves into puzzles. Can you guess which branch the designer wanted you to go down? The opportunity and, more often, the necessity of talking to each NPC multiple times to be sure you ferreted out the critical nugget of information or set the one necessary conversation flag is a pain and drains conversations of their emotional impact.

Wait.

Please explain how what he is saying is incorrect.

These are indeed the big flaws of dialog trees and why as a gameplay system they are extremely shallow, compared to say combat resolution.

If you can restart the conversation and try all options, then the smart play is to restart the conversation and try all options, to gather as much info as possible and/or find the key dialog option that provides something you need. This is technically "gameplay" but it's not particularly compelling, as you're just going through a process of elimination and reading/skimming some text. Frankly it tends to be something of a hassle.

If you can't restart the conversation and try all options, then it becomes a guessing / puzzle game as he describes above. You're trying to read the designer's intentions and either pick the "right" choice which provides the most benefits, or you're trying to read the designer's intentions and guess the "right" response which gives the plot result closest to the one you want. Typically none of the responses will say/do what you'd really want to say/do and so you're left guessing which will give the preferable result between two options both of which may give results you didn't really want. The temptation to reload and try the other one can get pretty huge.

At best you may have some to find some clues and analyze them to get a hint as to how this will turn out, but it's rare that you will need to put all that much thought into your dialog response. Typically either it will be obvious which response does what, or it will be quite unclear which response does what, so you have to guess.

The above things he mentions are flaws present in PS:T, Arcanum, Fallout, Fallout 2 and VTM:B Bloodlines, to at least some significant extent.

The catch phrase is choices and consequences, but in the absence of information, often you can't make an informed choice, only a guess as to the right dialog option to do what you want.

More liek guesses and consequences, am I rite?

Whereas with combat resolution, in a proper number crunching game, you know (or at least have some idea of) the equations used to resolve combat, you know what kinds of options are available, and analyze the information available and make an significantly informed choice regarding the game, not a guess.

See for example building your party in IWD2 or TOEE for some informed choices and consequences.

Read this for an idea of the thought that goes into building a party
http://www.sorcerers.net/Games/dl.php?s ... i_jupp.zip

Then imagine how much thought you put into picking dialog options.

Warren Spector > Codex Storyfags

 

[Archibald]

The temptation to reload and try the other one can get pretty huge.

This is always a problem and not exclusive to dialogues.


Anyway, i think that problem is not with dialogues themselves. Problem is with NPCs. Once someone manages to make them "alive" and not some standing blobs of information then dialogues themselves will be better. Make them active, not standing around in one place forever, having jobs, hobbies, personalities. I wouldn`t like if some fag came to my work and started asking some stupid questions nor would i like if he asked same question 4 times in a row. Make non-static worlds. Tree itself, in my opinion, is prefectly fine.

 

[AnalogKid]

More liek guesses and consequences, am I rite?

This.

Imagine a dialog tree that's more of a table, with each option clearly indicating all the resulting outcomes. No-one would ever feel the need to re-load, because they could actually make INFORMED choices, not guesses. It doesn't sound particularly fun or realistic, but the current trend of giving the player even LESS information about what he's about to say and how the dialog partner might respond just makes this all the more rage-worthy.

Combat makes outcomes uncertain by randomization, with player choices influencing statistical averages, but a really great swordsman might still critically miss, or whatever. So the player has informed input that isn't completely deterministic.

At its best, conversation outcomes are uncertain due to game-theory presence of another "player". Without any info to help play the "game", though, it's just blind luck and really annoying. Solutions would be to either create conversations without blind-guess uncertain outcomes (for example, when asking for information about stuff, there's not much uncertainty or need to reload), or actually provide MORE INFORMATION to the player. Maybe have smooth-talker skills give meta-game info to the player (likely to piss guard off)...(high chance of bargaining up reward)...that kind of thing.

Basically, make conversations an actual GAME, complete with INFORMED player input. Or else keep it just-the-facts ma'am, and don't have game rewards be dependent on it.