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Aliens RPG now "officially canceled."

circ

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Well fuck yeah I want shooting. This isn't the 90s gorrammit. Oh well.

But if your inspiration are the movies, there's shooting involved and it isn't all for naught. Worked with moderate success in the Darkhorse comics. Ripley survived Alien because she used her brains, not stealth per se. And she survived Aliens because she had a dozen people as bodyshields. Newt survived because she was a useless kid and the xenos couldn't be fucked to bother with her. Bodyshields all gone, xenos grab Newt, Ripley follows, xenos don't attack because the queen will put a cap in them. Ripley uses her brain, threatens to blow up a few eggs, queen sits tight and waits. Oh no, backstab, Ripley runs with Newt. I don't know, not so much environment there.

I can see your stealth now stealthmaster. However, that's not what I got out of it initially, it really was putting a lot of completely unrelated combat jargon under one term. But stealthing dormant aliens? No way homes.
 

MLMarkland

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circ said:
Oh, I do have a legitimate question not relating to some stupid whining about stealth.

What timeline was this going to be set in ML?

I wasn't implying that shooting wasn't a viable solution in the game, it certainly was -- it just wasn't the only solution for all of your problems. (Also, the marine incursion into the atmospheric processor (Aliens) and the end of the original Alien movie both lend strong evidence to the idea that you can move past sleeping Aliens without waking them).

I don't mind talking about stuff I was directly involved in on Aliens, in a very general sense, but I don't want to get into details about the project; that's Obsidian's bailiwick and I don't work there anymore. If the current studio I am at works on an RPG, I'll spill all the beans here though.
 

Lonely Vazdru

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Stealthy :

Aliens_Ripley_soldier_Pulse_Rifle.jpg



Not stealthy :

a_057JenetteGoldstein.jpg
 

Lonely Vazdru

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MLMarkland said:
Pictures speak a thousand words.

Actually, I was making fun of this whole "surrealistic" discussion.

And I love that movie so much, a couple of pictures couldn't hurt.
 

MLMarkland

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Lonely Vazdru said:
MLMarkland said:
Pictures speak a thousand words.

Actually, I was making fun of this whole "surrealistic" discussion.

And I love that movie so much, a couple of pictures couldn't hurt.

That was more a commentary on the succinctness of your contribution to the thread versus to verbosity of Rosh and I's back and forth.
 

Rosh

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MLMarkland said:
I refuse to accept that, when presented with the question: Will you design me an Aliens RPG? That the only two answers are: "Okay here's a game where we shoot a bunch of Aliens" and "No, can't do it."

Are you really arguing for a shooter-gameplay-only Aliens RPG? Not only would that be boring, it would also be no different than the planned Aliens FPS. Also it would be incongruent with the movies.

Here's where remote systems and synthetics, along with the rest of the technology, can be used in conjunction with each other to form base defenses given the type of terrain. It would be up to the player to decide where to focus their fire/manpower and where to focus your automated/remote systems, or how to set up both to compliment each other given a situation/type of enemy. Synthetics were also the main thing I was hoping you'd possibly touch upon, because they are, for the most part, undetectable by xenos except for by sight and sound.

That sounds a bit more in depth than "shoot" or "trap". It allows for the player to adjust time-worn strategies of other cliché games towards the psychology, physiology, and abilities of the xenomorphs. It allows you to decide where to put your team member's abilities, and which you'd take for a main character, as undoubtedly you'll not always have the environment of your choice.

I've watched the first two Aliens movies as a part of my job roughly 40-50 times in the past two years.

Books, comics, etc. for the last 25+ years. :)

What characterizes BOTH movies is that whenever the humans tried to engage in a stand-up fight they died. Ignoring that fact to make a fun game isn't an acceptable solution, imho.

Ripley and Newt survived because they used their environment to survive.

Hahah, no. You seemed to have missed the parts where someone tried to hide, only to have a xeno creep up and eat them. You also seemed to have missed the part where Ripley went toe-to-toe with xenos, and remained standing. It was from being able to hide from them through her own rather unique survival instinct honed by knowing how deadly they were, as well as confusing them. In some cases, for a while she could instill fear.

Regardless of setting, the character development of Ripley is an interesting one to consider, which could have been in turn used for the RPG. Ripley was emotionally scarred at first, then went into some serious PTSD, and with more reinforcement turned any remaining fear into a psychotic rage against them, especially after Newt died. As your soldiers saw more brutal combat and were seasoned towards fighting xenos, they would have likely developed similar survivor defenses.

Newt and Ripley simply stopped being afraid after a while due to PTSD, and stopped giving off the scent of fear - though in immediate danger Newt did have panic moments. It made it incredibly hard for the xenos to track them and find them. The absence of the smell of fear, along with the smell of a predator, would have confused the hive into responding to another predator - which is something you really don't see in regards to the xenos, and that is why Ripley's story is a bit unique.

That is what the stealth-like/evasion gameplay design was focused on -- being aware of the environment, using the environment, modifying the environment with traps/mines/whatnot, avoiding dormant Aliens (like the Alien at the end of Alien), etc.

The stealth gameplay was focused not on wakeful Aliens potentially cognizant of your presence, but on dormant Aliens, Alien Eggs, potentially hostile Humans, etc.

Avoiding potentially hostile humans, as per a corporate espionage situation, does seem far more plausible for stealth. Environment manipulation is a tad too far from stealth though it is an established cliché that D&D classes can do both (so I can understand part of the confusion there), which was my main disagreement with the idea of everything being put under the stealth umbrella, particularly when it comes to being part of the setting in terms of the defense networks the corporations had to rely on in order to combat the xeno infestation. Defense turrets, electric fencing, and more were used to hinder them from a full-out swarm. I wanted to know what made this different from warriors with pulse rifles and thieves setting traps and sneaking around.

As Morgoth grunted out (Oh my, a halfway intelligent post from you? Keep it up!), and I joked about earlier, a masking system of some sort would have been plausible in part to help blind them. While limiting the resources of those masking abilities, it would allow the player the choice of allocating them towards their chosen defense terrain.

The base concept of stealth, in the Aliens setting, is all but indigestible to those who have followed the now 30 years the setting has been around (which I know doesn't fit well with the "OMG, I just want eye candy, will you shut up and stop using hard concepts!" crowd), and so clarification needed to be made before it undoubtedly caught the eye of a mass media editor who had a bit more free time than I to address this issue.

I doubt you'd like a Zero Punctuation-esque treatment of a soldier sneaking by a xeno on his tiptoes, which would be readily identifiable by fans of the Aliens setting (you know, the reason why you guys were making a game in the setting) as a bullshit concept.

Sneaking past the eggs? Old hat, and a given, though you can't sneak past by merely being silent - you still had to stay far away from their olfactory senses, which was in part tied into the egg structure (notice the construction of the top of the eggs?).

Welcome to Facehugger Roulette. :)
 

MLMarkland

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Rosh said:
Here's where remote systems and synthetics, along with the rest of the technology, can be used in conjunction with each other to form base defenses given the type of terrain. It would be up to the player to decide where to focus their fire/manpower and where to focus your automated/remote systems, or how to set up both to compliment each other given a situation/type of enemy. Synthetics were also the main thing I was hoping you'd possibly touch upon, because they are, for the most part, undetectable by xenos except for by sight and sound.

That sounds a bit more in depth than "shoot" or "trap". It allows for the player to adjust time-worn strategies of other cliché games towards the psychology, physiology, and abilities of the xenomorphs. It allows you to decide where to put your team member's abilities, and which you'd take for a main character, as undoubtedly you'll not always have the environment of your choice.

Your ideas are cool and definitely in line with the IP I've refrained from going in depth on the design of the game for reasons unrelated to the discussion here - I don't work at Obsidian anymore and it's not my job to talk about Aliens.

My main disagreement with you has been over whether using the word stealth as a shorthand for design discussions internally on the Aliens game was some sort of transgression (which it isn't).

Books, comics, etc. for the last 25+ years. :)

Books and comics were definitely used by people for reference, but they are officially secondary canon compared to the movies (specifically the first 3 movies).

Hahah, no. You seemed to have missed the parts where someone tried to hide, only to have a xeno creep up and eat them. You also seemed to have missed the part where Ripley went toe-to-toe with xenos, and remained standing. It was from being able to hide from them through her own rather unique survival instinct honed by knowing how deadly they were, as well as confusing them. In some cases, for a while she could instill fear.

I don't see how people failing to hide successfully has anything to do with my claim that standing up to the Aliens in a fight almost invariably led to bad results (except Ripley).

Stop trying to play gotcha, it just degrades your other points which have merit and your ideas which seem to be sound.

Regardless of setting, the character development of Ripley is an interesting one to consider, which could have been in turn used for the RPG. Ripley was emotionally scarred at first, then went into some serious PTSD, and with more reinforcement turned any remaining fear into a psychotic rage against them, especially after Newt died. As your soldiers saw more brutal combat and were seasoned towards fighting xenos, they would have likely developed similar survivor defenses.

Newt and Ripley simply stopped being afraid after a while due to PTSD, and stopped giving off the scent of fear - though in immediate danger Newt did have panic moments. It made it incredibly hard for the xenos to track them and find them. The absence of the smell of fear, along with the smell of a predator, would have confused the hive into responding to another predator - which is something you really don't see in regards to the xenos, and that is why Ripley's story is a bit unique.

These are all cool ideas -- just don't assume that Sawyer and the other designers didn't have similar trains of thought on this subject matter. It takes a lot more than well reasoned design to keep a game from getting canceled.

Avoiding potentially hostile humans, as per a corporate espionage situation, does seem far more plausible for stealth. Environment manipulation is a tad too far from stealth though it is an established cliché that D&D classes can do both (so I can understand part of the confusion there), which was my main disagreement with the idea of everything being put under the stealth umbrella, particularly when it comes to being part of the setting in terms of the defense networks the corporations had to rely on in order to combat the xeno infestation. Defense turrets, electric fencing, and more were used to hinder them from a full-out swarm. I wanted to know what made this different from warriors with pulse rifles and thieves setting traps and sneaking around.

The base concept of stealth, in the Aliens setting, is all but indigestible to those who have followed the now 30 years the setting has been around (which I know doesn't fit well with the "OMG, I just want eye candy, will you shut up and stop using hard concepts!" crowd), and so clarification needed to be made before it undoubtedly caught the eye of a mass media editor who had a bit more free time than I to address this issue.

I just disagree with all this. Stealth is not contra to the IP. Being evasive is the best way to survive. The simplistic concept of stealth driven by most games is certainly not the kind of moment-to-moment gameplay experience we were shooting for; but the exact word we put on it isn't really relevant. The experience is what is important. How that experience ended up being marketed by Sega if the game had been finished would've been completely disconnected from my own activities in relation to the game.

I doubt you'd like a Zero Punctuation-esque treatment of a soldier sneaking by a xeno on his tiptoes, which would be readily identifiable by fans of the Aliens setting (you know, the reason why you guys were making a game in the setting) as a bullshit concept.

Obviously, which is why that never would have happened in the game.

Sneaking past the eggs? Old hat, and a given, though you can't sneak past by merely being silent - you still had to stay far away from their olfactory senses, which was in part tied into the egg structure (notice the construction of the top of the eggs?).

Welcome to Facehugger Roulette. :)

Sneaking past Alien eggs was distance-based. The olfactory nature of things was not definitively established by the movies however, which were our primary canonical sources.
 

Hümmelgümpf

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MLMarkland

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Hümmelgümpf said:
MLMarkland said:
Hümmelgümpf said:
MLMarkland said:
If the current studio I am at works on an RPG, I'll spill all the beans here though.
Where do you work now, by the way?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=baMileejUlw
Are you the only employee? The all-powerful Google can only find two social network profiles (both of them are yours) and the video you linked.
killspace.png

There's twenty team members right now along with a couple of contract writers.

It's a recent startup (January 2009) so we aren't very high profile yet.
 

Rosh

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MLMarkland said:
Your ideas are cool and definitely in line with the IP I've refrained from going in depth on the design of the game for reasons unrelated to the discussion here - I don't work at Obsidian anymore and it's not my job to talk about Aliens.

My main disagreement with you has been over whether using the word stealth as a shorthand for design discussions internally on the Aliens game was some sort of transgression (which it isn't).

Unfortunately, you run into the stigma of what the shorthand meant to the rest of the industry. I could hardly care if you called the mechanics "beanie weenies" internally.

Eventually, as it happened on these forums, it would have slipped out. It would have given some kind of preconception to the mass media of what to expect from the design connotations the term implies. The idea of hiding from a xenomorph is highly anathema to the setting, because except in certain circumstances, you can't just hide in a closet to escape as if the xeno were a crazed axe murderer (and even then that doesn't work out as movies changed to have the axe murderer go back and check all doors to eliminate possibilities).

Unlike you or me, the mass of Aliens fans don't know squat for game design mechanics aside from what the gaming media tells them.

Books and comics were definitely used by people for reference, but they are officially secondary canon compared to the movies (specifically the first 3 movies).

Some of them really, really stink. Most Alien fans tend to be fairly consistent about them.

I don't see how people failing to hide successfully has anything to do with my claim that standing up to the Aliens in a fight almost invariably led to bad results (except Ripley).

And yet, somehow, Ripley was a better combatant than marines, regardless of the situation. Aliens can also smell through ventilation ducts and track down people through their scent of fear - which is quite strong to a predator species. Now imagine the metaphorical confusion of a wolf stalking into a flock of sheep to find another wolf - but one that wants to kill them.

Stop trying to play gotcha, it just degrades your other points which have merit and your ideas which seem to be sound.

Nope, just pointing out a glaring error. Ripley has been a case among cerebral witch doctors for quite some time as a poster child of initial and reinforced cases of PTSD portrayed in film. Add in pheromone research, and you get into why some entomologists adore the series. The Hive, essentially, is a giant cluster of parasitic ants to them.

Many of the neat little morbid things those guys like about insects, from wasp to ant.

These are all cool ideas -- just don't assume that Sawyer and the other designers didn't have similar trains of thought on this subject matter. It takes a lot more than well reasoned design to keep a game from getting canceled.

All it would theoretically take is a leak of the idea of using stealth around xenos to the wrong people, and it would have caused problems. Media titles have been shitcanned for less, see the example above of the poor quality Alien work and why some books don't have sequels.

I just disagree with all this. Stealth is not contra to the IP. Being evasive is the best way to survive.

Unfortunately, the main theme and why Aliens were so fearsome a villain, would be mainly because there is no running from them.

You get facehugged, you're going to die and take your friends with you.

You hide in a closet, they will find you.

You run, they can chase you down.

You fight, they flank you or wait until they can hide from you and attack you in surprise.

You can only hide for so very short of a time before they find you, as your fear leads them right to you. The use of pheromones wasn't an overt thing in the movies, it was a subtle detail of Giger's design - as they were modeled after a hive species like ants, it was natural to adopt many of their traits like scent trails.

A race that didn't need to breathe suddenly stops and draws in air. Hmm... Then you get into the xenos doing the same thing to a trapped victim - which is the sign of a sentient or semi-intelligent predator, savoring the fear and the meal to come soon.

They are the embodiment of stealthy killers. It took a special case for a "prey" to survive for so long, and that was because they weren't technically prey any longer.

The simplistic concept of stealth driven by most games is certainly not the kind of moment-to-moment gameplay experience we were shooting for; but the exact word we put on it isn't really relevant.

Until the public found out, before playing the title. It was certain to get out or be slipped out somehow, like I was waiting for. EA aren't the only ones with spies in Obsidian (though information was sketchy at best, probably given the ambiguity of what was talked about as stealth ;)). Stealth already has a meaning to the gaming market.

Mistakes like that aren't good to make. Just something to note for the future. Unfortunately, Obsidian has for a long time subscribed to the Feargus mentality and seems to keep doing the same thing over and over that in fact pushes away some fans over time. That isn't good, either. This title was the last, best hope many of us had for the dev house.

The experience is what is important. How that experience ended up being marketed by Sega if the game had been finished would've been completely disconnected from my own activities in relation to the game.

Unfortunately, the term was already dropped, long before the marketing department at Sega had touched it. That is a negative impact that wouldn't go over well with fans.

"Stealth" was already known before it was dropped into this thread.

I doubt you'd like a Zero Punctuation-esque treatment of a soldier sneaking by a xeno on his tiptoes, which would be readily identifiable by fans of the Aliens setting (you know, the reason why you guys were making a game in the setting) as a bullshit concept.

Obviously, which is why that never would have happened in the game.

Except that "stealth" was already being leaked out. I've merely been pointing out what kind of a media mess that would have been if people weren't mourning Nambla Jackson and the death of this title (if the info were leaked out to mass media at this time, that is). I still don't want to see it mistakenly reported by the mass media, either, as honestly that would have given discredit towards Obsidian's last attempt at decent gameplay.

My beef of the terminology aside, I really didn't want to see this title die. I've known it was dead or on hiatus for quite a while.

Sneaking past Alien eggs was distance-based. The olfactory nature of things was not definitively established by the movies however, which were our primary canonical sources.

Even then, it wouldn't really be sneaking. Just avoidance, like a land mine. It turns the gameplay from anything like stealth into a proximity maze.

As I mentioned before, EA already has a spy there at Obsidian, and it's giving me a few chuckles. They aren't my spy, but I've heard from my own at EA that Obsidian was one of EA's Borg targets to assimilate or put out of business.

I can say with good probability that I have the largest current spy network in the game industry, though they aren't always in the departments I would like. As I've been telling folks for years: Rosh is only the spymaster. I have been approached by a few execs threatening lawsuits, but unfortunately that would simply bite them in the ass in return as they were held accountable for truth in advertising laws. Back in the Origin/UO2/UIX days, they hated me, and it was the information gained that probably made EA decide to cancel UO2 because of all the robots and other science fiction additions. EA has since toned down much of their commercial hype, churning out the same copy/paste styles of development for their devoted fans. In exchange, I am to be selective about what I investigate, and that is why I don't run a news site (though I have far more than enough info to do so). Some things like Spore and The Sims I don't particularly care about, so I leave those well enough alone.

That's okay with me, as EA is where decent game development goes to die or be milked to death.
 

MLMarkland

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Rosh said:
Unfortunately, you run into the stigma of what the shorthand meant to the rest of the industry. I could hardly care if you called the mechanics "beanie weenies" internally.

You are trying to create a mountain out of less than a molehill. The herculean effort you are expending to raise some sort of question where there is no question is mind-boggling.

You are screaming fire while scuba diving. It's truly epic.

Rosh said:
Eventually, as it happened on these forums, it would have slipped out. It would have given some kind of preconception to the mass media of what to expect from the design connotations the term implies. The idea of hiding from a xenomorph is highly anathema to the setting, because except in certain circumstances, you can't just hide in a closet to escape as if the xeno were a crazed axe murderer (and even then that doesn't work out as movies changed to have the axe murderer go back and check all doors to eliminate possibilities).

Except hiding in a closet is exactly what Newt did.

Besides... "it would have slipped out." What would have slipped out? That an RPG had more ways to solve problems that killing the enemies. OH MY FUCKING GOD!!! Someone call id, we need to stop this immediately.


Nope, just pointing out a glaring error. Ripley has been a case among cerebral witch doctors for quite some time as a poster child of initial and reinforced cases of PTSD portrayed in film. Add in pheromone research, and you get into why some entomologists adore the series. The Hive, essentially, is a giant cluster of parasitic ants to them.

That's nice info, but what the hell does it have to do with anything?

All it would theoretically take is a leak of the idea of using stealth around xenos to the wrong people, and it would have caused problems. Media titles have been shitcanned for less, see the example above of the poor quality Alien work and why some books don't have sequels.

No. But whatever.

Until the public found out, before playing the title. It was certain to get out or be slipped out somehow, like I was waiting for. EA aren't the only ones with spies in Obsidian (though information was sketchy at best, probably given the ambiguity of what was talked about as stealth ;)). Stealth already has a meaning to the gaming market.

Mistakes like that aren't good to make. Just something to note for the future. Unfortunately, Obsidian has for a long time subscribed to the Feargus mentality and seems to keep doing the same thing over and over that in fact pushes away some fans over time. That isn't good, either. This title was the last, best hope many of us had for the dev house.

Lol, what?

"Stealth" was already known before it was dropped into this thread.

Obsidian did "Stealth" and 9-11 too. Never forget.

I still don't want to see it mistakenly reported by the mass media, either, as honestly that would have given discredit towards Obsidian's last attempt at decent gameplay.

This is quite frankly beyond stupid.

As I mentioned before, EA already has a spy there at Obsidian, and it's giving me a few chuckles. They aren't my spy, but I've heard from my own at EA that Obsidian was one of EA's Borg targets to assimilate or put out of business.

Industrial espionage... was stealth involved?
 

Rosh

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MLMarkland said:
Except no one except you cares. No one at Obsidian. No one at Sega. No one anywhere, thinks about this. All of these people are too busy engaged in the actual profession of developing and publishing video games.

Again, think about the whole Zero Punctuation treatment if it were made public at a time when it would have been most damning towards releasing the title.

Lack of foresight is one of the most problematic things in the industry. All the above care about is the paycheck at the end.

Except hiding in a closet is exactly what Newt did.

And wasn't afraid any longer. After seeing what happened to her own family and the rest of the colonists, she turned into a little Mini-Ripley.

Besides... "it would have slipped out." What would have slipped out? That an RPG had more ways to solve problems that killing the enemies. OH MY FUCKING GOD!!! Someone call id, we need to stop this immediately.

Stealth against xenos is perhaps the most laughable concept in regards the franchise. Okay, there might be a few others...

I'm glad you're enjoying the laugh.

Nope, just pointing out a glaring error. Ripley has been a case among cerebral witch doctors for quite some time as a poster child of initial and reinforced cases of PTSD portrayed in film. Add in pheromone research, and you get into why some entomologists adore the series. The Hive, essentially, is a giant cluster of parasitic ants to them.

That's nice info, but what the hell does it have to do with anything?

To a pheromone-based predator species, everything.

Lol, what?

"Stealth" was already known before it was dropped into this thread.

Obsidian did "Stealth" and 9-11 too. Never forget.

Now you're just going into 4chan retardation again, while I was seriously discussing the topic. I'm glad it's a joke to you, but hey, you already got paid for working on a title that didn't see the light of day.

Industrial espionage... was stealth involved?

Oh, undoubtedly. Not on my part, though, because a certain amount of subterfuge goes even further. Such as having my contacts report information to me without even realizing I'm Rosh.
 

Kingston

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I lack the wit to put something hilarious here
You can only hide for so very short of a time before they find you, as your fear leads them right to you. The use of pheromones wasn't an overt thing in the movies, it was a subtle detail of Giger's design - as they were modeled after a hive species like ants, it was natural to adopt many of their traits like scent trails.

I don't really get this. Seems to me like getting rid of the smell of fear would be the easiest tactic of the lot. It's just a bunch of different chemicals you sweat. Better yet, why not get some of that terror sweat and put it in a jar, open a jar near an airlock and blast all the aliens that arrive into space.

I've only seen the movies so I'm not an expert on the franchise.
 

Rosh

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Kingston said:
I don't really get this. Seems to me like getting rid of the smell of fear would be the easiest tactic of the lot. It's just a bunch of different chemicals you sweat. Better yet, why not get some of that terror sweat and put it in a jar, open a jar near an airlock and blast all the aliens that arrive into space.

I've only seen the movies so I'm not an expert on the franchise.

Pity there wasn't an entomologist in any of the locations to draw that connection. Besides, most of the people who observed xeno activity didn't live long.
 

denizsi

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Also, I thought that big Alien was incongruous with the IP when I first saw it and I think it's incongruous with the IP still today.

Hear that, Anthony? Well of course you're entitled to your opinion. Millions of people around the world are also entitled to their trivial and populist opinions that decrease quality of standards and ruin the life for everyone. Nothing wrong with it, no.

What should I literally name the 60 page document that describes all of the things that fall under stealth-like and evasion gameplay?

Should I call it:

"Scouting, Traps, Blockades, Running from Aliens, Aliens Hiding, etc. etc. etc."

How about the word "Survival"? Given the context, that all these are defensive measures to prolong your life in a lion's den, it is survival. And survival doesn't have an as limiting definition as "stealth" and perfectly covers everything you've described.

Chefe said:
Well, it was nice having a developer comment around here. It was nice reading your posts, Mr. Davis. I guess you won't be returning. The same thing happened with the Bethesda developers. A bunch of idiots start attacking them like dogs on steak and then they leave.

Bethesda people, namely Pete and Steve Meister always spewed absolute bullshit. They were so full of it, they believed it themselves, and when Codexers confronted them about all these things, all of a sudden they remembered that there's a lot of immaturity and NSFW content for them to be able to hang around here.

They have contributed absolutely nothing to these forums. They have provided absolutely no insight about their games on these forums. They only told lies about how awesome their game would be with so many features, you gotta wonder if the game they promised and the one they released is the same game at all. Given the choice, it's easy to choose between having developers hang around here for the "cool" factor in return of sucking their cocks, or telling them to beat it.

But there comes a time when you just wake up and realize it is not worth it, and either you get on with your life or you are so ingrained in the madness that you sit here and suffer for all eternity. The Codex is not like the other gaming communities of today. If you offer a game that does not stick to tradition and focuses more on the mechanics today and draws in crowd that likes not to think or reason or appreciate, but to sit down and pass the time by shooting stuff, you will be torn apart. That is the way things are now. It is why we are here and Bioware and Bethesda have millions of fans around the world. We are not part of the times. We are obsolete, and revel in our antiquity. We should not discourage games that are simple, or cinematic, because that is how things are. But we do, and if one does not conform to that they will be hated and spat on. I know. I was one of the people who drove the Bethesda developers out of here, even though they too, such as MrSmileyFaceDude and kathode, said they were here for good RPG conversation, and a few trolls would not be a deterrent. Now you cannot even mention RPGCodex on the ESF without being permanently banned.

"Things are different now. We are obsolete"

LOL.

We actually spent some time debating what we should call the system until we realized that debating what we call the system was an ABSURD WASTE OF TIME

This is the key to understanding why Obsidian games have been buggy and missing so much content.

It's a startup formed by a group of Southern California game designers, programmers, producers, artists and animators and the subject for another thread in another time and place. I'll post what we're up to on the codex when it's announced.

I'm looking forward to it. It will be a blast to see what other misleading catch words you will use to define your game.

What sophistry is this? Three pages of arguing about the freaking name of a game system? The hell, Codex? Who cares what name they decided to use, as long as the end result would be fun to play?

I've heard a near identical defense from another developer years ago. His name was MSFD. And he talked bullshit to hell and back.
 

FeelTheRads

Arcane
Joined
Apr 18, 2008
Messages
13,716
Darth Roxor said:
MLMarkland said:
Industrial espionage... was stealth involved?

I lol'd.

Yes, now it seems it's cool among kids to try to make Roshambo look stupid.

It's funny to watch, though, because such failure is rarely seen.
 
Joined
Apr 12, 2007
Messages
1,658
Location
Prussia
Good luck with Kill<s>zone</s>space Entertainment, Mr Markland.
I`ll gladly rant about it, unfortunatly not as passionate as Rosh.
 

MLMarkland

Arcane
Developer
Joined
Dec 12, 2006
Messages
1,663
Location
Malibu, CA
denizsi said:
How about the word "Survival"? Given the context, that all these are defensive measures to prolong your life in a lion's den, it is survival. And survival doesn't have an as limiting definition as "stealth" and perfectly covers everything you've described.

How does that differentiate the gameplay from survival using direct combat? Evasion was the best word to describe it; stealth was the second best word and still is. There was a lot more to the game than this; but the obtuse rants of a few people in this thread in response to such a meaningless bit of information really does say a lot about the quality of discourse online these days.

I'm looking forward to it. It will be a blast to see what other misleading catch words you will use to define your game.

I look forward to your next post when you use misleading turns of phrase to make a point.

FeelTheRads said:
Yes, now it seems it's cool among kids to try to make Roshambo look stupid.

I'm not trying to make Roshambo look stupid. I'm simply responding to absurd distortions he is promulgating in his posts.
 

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