Editorial Dan Vavra on Pitching Warhorse's New RPG to Publishers

[Smejki]

regarding wow moments and cinematic-y feeling I wouldn't hesitate to name Skyrim. Yeah, it is horribly designed, easy, disbalanced, poorly written etc. However where are any of the wow moments? At the very begining where you are escaping your execution due to dragon attack? I don't think there is any other filmy sections in the game. Yet it sold more than all the wow moment driven bullshit the industry is full of. Even the CoDs and Battlefields with their shitty Michael Bay-ish campaigns are sold primarily for design driven multiplayer. GTA is the only filmy game I can think of which has awesome sales. And even this is bought for the lulz of openworld madness action.

For some reason though publishers still seem to push for linear, over the top, overscripted crap with falling skyscraper every ten minutes. Or maybe the have just abandoned this idea and all we see now are results of 3yrs old decisions. I guess all of them now want their own f2p DOTA.

 

[cvv]

maybe they have just abandoned this idea and all we see now are results of 3yrs old decisions

Pretty sure that's a big part of it.

Seems the publishers saw the success of open world games like Skyrim or RDR and the pendulum swung the other way now. Most recent or in-development AAA games now are open world - GTA5, AC4, Watch Dogs, Witcher 3, DA3, FF XV, Destiny, Thief, Division, the new Star Wars game by EA, the next Fallout and I bet my balls the next Mass Effect will be open world too.

 

[Azrael the cat]

regarding wow moments and cinematic-y feeling I wouldn't hesitate to name Skyrim. Yeah, it is horribly designed, easy, disbalanced, poorly written etc. However where are any of the wow moments? At the very begining where you are escaping your execution due to dragon attack? I don't think there is any other filmy sections in the game. Yet it sold more than all the wow moment driven bullshit the industry is full of. Even the CoDs and Battlefields with their shitty Michael Bay-ish campaigns are sold primarily for design driven multiplayer. GTA is the only filmy game I can think of which has awesome sales. And even this is bought for the lulz of openworld madness action.

For some reason though publishers still seem to push for linear, over the top, overscripted crap with falling skyscraper every ten minutes. Or maybe the have just abandoned this idea and all we see now are results of 3yrs old decisions. I guess all of them now want their own f2p DOTA.

Keep in mind that the closest most publishers are going to come to experiencing the game (before funding, at least) is watching a powerpoint presentation and maybe some scripted pre-alpha footage. Easy to see why a linear 'press X for awesome!!!11!!' game is going to present better than something mechanics-driven.

I suspect that half the reason the CoD-style games even have single player is so that they can show the publisher/supervisor some speccy graphics and 'wow moments', rather than relying on them to comprehend the multiplayer mechanics, even though the designers know it's the multiplayer that will sell the game.

 

[Servo]

http://warhorsestudios.cz/index.php?page=blog&entry=blog_011&lang=en
Not that he has given us final statement but at least we know balancing realism and entertainment is a big issue for him

That was an interesting read, but it sounds like Daniel cannot into level design.