Developer Story Time with Old Man Davis

[Lilura]

In NWN2 you just drag and drop to the toolbar from your skill-list and feat-list. Spells you just hit the F key and drag and drop from there or your spellbook to the toolbar, doesn't get any easier and faster than that. Plus the way it was coded makes it FAR more customisable for modders, check out Charlie's, Tcho's and SlimGUI for what can be done, there is even a Baldur's Gate UI mod.
NWN has a GUI win by virtue of beautifully drawn icons, clarity and cleanness of look and being responsive and even a joy to navigate.

 

[Gurkog]

and should easily be able to see the effects of making such false promises while doing routine checks on progress.

Yeah, thing is, that stuff isn't easy to see. Unless you're a wizard with a crystal ball.

No shit? They should probably hire skilled producers then, instead of hiring lowest bid contractors or some hobo off the street.

 

[Lonely Vazdru]

"Radial menus in NWN1 made playing a spellcasting class a complete chore, especially if you aimed for diverse, utility spellbook and not for typical munchkin memorizing."

BULLSHIT. The radial menues PERFECT for ALL spellcasters.

Do you have any idea how aggravating it is to have to go back and find who you're talking to for any reader that is not a) you, or b) the person you're quoting ? Learn to quote or use PMs you cheap fuck.

EDIT : FFS !

 

[zwanzig_zwoelf]

The radial menues PERFECT for ALL spellcasters.

Radial menus are the worst thing humanity designed so far. It is perfect only for gamepad users.

 

[Blaine]

Real men use macros mapped to keyboard macro keys and/or [ALT or CTRL or SHIFT] + [1 through {0 or "="}] to perform game functions. A gaming keyboard with ten programmable macro keys offers 60 or 66 functions in this way.

Anything less is for casuals and they should kill themselves immediately.

Spoiler

That's the simplest acceptable setup for beginners prior to having hundreds or thousands of macros at one's fingertips, and completely memorized.

 

[Hirato]

NWN2's camera and interface is laggy and unresponsive? What are you guys talking about


Anthony, for the record, I never really held the "bugsidian" viewpoint, then again I've never played/owned KOTOR2.
My perception of obsidian was more that due to publisher issues their games are released somewhat buggy, but they went to immense pains to fix issues post-release.
Take NWN2 for example, I bought that in mid-2009 and it was still receiving patches at the time, which is a ridiculously long time for a game which was released in 2006, and final official expansion the year prior.

Frankly I have much more respect for an entity like Obsidian as opposed to the likes of Bethesda, just by looking at how they handle bugs, QA, and feedback.
On one hand you have Obsidian which provided a tonne of post-release support and effectively rendered their titles bug-free when they finally get shelved years later,
On the other you have Bethesda who releases a game which is buggy as all hell, for which they provide a few patches that fix a dozen minor inconsequential issues or add achievements for their upcoming DLC.

 

[Blaine]

On the other you have Bethesda who releases a game which is buggy as all hell, for which they provide a few patches that fix a dozen minor inconsequential issues or add achievements for their upcoming DLC.

More than that, Todd Howard et al. are openly hostile toward PC gamers. In an interview in early 2012, he cited piracy as the reason Bethesda couldn't be bothered to implement a proper mouse-and-keyboard UI, a halfway-decent control scheme, or more than a few PC-specific bug fixes per year. Nevermind that the PC is the reason his company exists in the first place, and that they have many loyal PC fans.

Doesn't bother me, though. The only useful purpose Bethesda's garbage serves is to keep twenty-somethings buying GPUs, CPUs, mobos and so on from manufacturers (or indirectly through Alienware/boutique builders), which benefits me indirectly by fattening said companies' pocketbooks.

 

[Infinitron]

Take NWN2 for example, I bought that in mid-2009 and it was still receiving patches at the time, which is a ridiculously long time for a game which was released in 2006, and final official expansion the year prior.

Thing is, NWN1 was getting patches 6 years(!) after its release. So yeah.

 

[Blaine]

Thing is, NWN1 was getting patches 6 years(!) after its release. So yeah.

Well, people were still PLAYING (and purchasing copies of, one presumes) NWN1 six years after its release, due to all the player-created modules and multiplayer servers.

 

[Anthony Davis]

One thing that stuck out for me about character movement (coming off NWN) was how enemies would occasionally lock on and sort of glide towards you without a walk anim, and how great cleave lacked anims for each hit. Melee characters also didn't shape up and move around naturally and with realism as in NWN, in fact characters in general didn't distance themselves properly in fights, especially in mobs, sometimes swinging thru each others' models.

The cleave and great cleave were actually broken in NWN. Because they animated everything, and animations take time to play, and because of animation delays, but you have a HARD limit of 6 seconds, melee classes frequently lost their bonus swings in NWN. I think another melee feat was broken in NWN because of this too, in addition to just the bonus attacks because of this.

The dance of death as it was called, the automatic circle strafing was also kind of broken in NWN. characters would step on traps that were already discovered, and triggers too. Those fake blocks and the circle strafing also took up animation time which further exacerbated the above problem. 6 seconds... That's all you had for melee classes.

Those two bugs didn't really effect spell casters obviously.

 

[Cosmo]

Let's step out of D&D for a second : do people in Obsidian take pain to try most CRPGs out there or is everyone just following his gaming inclinations ? How well do they know foreign games (the first Gothics for example) and do they replay old ones ?
We know Sawyer's tastes quite well by now, but what of the others ?

 

[Anthony Davis]

Let's step out of D&D for a second : do people in Obsidian take pain to try most CRPGs out there or is everyone just following his gaming inclinations ? How well do they know foreign games (the first Gothics for example) and do they replay old ones ?
We know Sawyer's tastes quite well by now, but what of the others ?

Oh sure, I would say almost 99% of Obsidian are RPG fans first.

Some Obsidianites, like Jeff Husges are definitive experts on the Ultima Series. For example, there was a time when Josh was playing through Ultima 5 I think at work and he sort of outloud remarked that he couldn't remember how to play "Stones". Jeff happened to be walking by, popped into Josh's office and banged out Stones in one try without mistakes on the harpsichord in game which opened the secret door, then Jeff left the office. The whole time he never said anything... like a boss. Truly a Codexian feat.

Former Obsidianites, like Tony Evans, was an expert on Might and Magic, both the good and the bad.

Almost all of us played the Witcher 1 and 2.

The Gothics didn't come up too much in discussion.

I've played plenty of older games, like Tunnels and Trolls, or older SSI games like Rings of Zilfin and Demon's Winter. The Standing Stones is one of my favorite blobbers, probably because it was the first one I remember beating and it had great music.

Many Obsidianites are fans of, and have played the crap out of the Phantasie series.

Wizard's Crown and Eternal Dagger are talked about quite a bit.

Almost all the board games we played are European.


Those are the most ready examples that popped in my head, but I am sure there are more if I can get these old neurons firing.

 

[Crooked Bee]

Hey, I played The Standing Stones! Isn't it single character, not party based though? Or am I misremembering things?

Also, I see a distinct absence of Wizardry on that list.

 

[Anthony Davis]

Hey, I played The Standing Stones! Isn't it single character, not party based though? Or am I misremembering things?

Also, I see a distinct absence of Wizardry on that list.

All I can remember off the top of my head with The Standing Stones is the music, and getting attacked by Moose Penises and Bowls of Cereal. Once I get time, I plan on setting up my c64 and playing it.

Wizardry is a given. Everybody has played that, right?

 

[Crooked Bee]

Anthony Davis Do any of Obsidian devs play contemporary JRPGs? MCA maybe?

Do any of them own a DS/3DS?

 

[Anthony Davis]

Anthony Davis Do any of Obsidian devs play contemporary JRPGs? MCA maybe?

Do any of them own a DS/3DS?

A lot of Artists and Designers play the newer Final Fantasy games. Some programmers do, but then they just complain about the horrible stories.

Almost everyone plays Demon or Dark Souls.

Dragon's Dogma is pretty popular (my current favorite console game).

A lot of Artists and Designers play the Monster Hunter games.

Atlus games are ALWAYS popular, even the bad ones.

Almost everyone has a portable of some sort, but I would imagine that most mobile gaming is now on mobile devices and tablets, but that's only a guess. I know that my good friend Dan Spitzley loves the Etrian Oddessy games. I myself have been playing EO IV and the new Fire Emblem game too.

 

[Infinitron]

Obsidian's programmers sound like total bros. Come out of lurking, guys.

 

[HobGoblin42]

People at Obsidian obviously have a great taste in CRPGs.
"The Standing Stones" is the first published RPG of EA (1983) and it's so rare that not even mobygames had it listed.
Fortunately, I still have the original flat folder that includes a very nice large map through all dungeon levels

 

[Kane]

A lot of Artists and Designers play the newer Final Fantasy games. Some programmers do, but then they just complain about the horrible stories.

A lot of the stuff you've been hinting at during your posts boils down to the epic battle between glorious & true programers vs. faggy weeaboo artists on the plains of development hell. Is it the artists who corrupt gaming, with the programmers the proud, the few waging an eternal and losing battle against the forces of popamolification?

 

[villain of the story]

You are both right.

As a customer, you should not have to care about the quality of the product or the problems creating the product.

As a member of the gamer culture, understanding how things work will help you appreciate your culture more... at least in my opinion.

I understand all that you are saying but ultimately, your position is sort of like this: You want to make and sell donuts. So you talk to various suppliers to get the necessary supplies to make and sell donuts. Later on, a customer walks up to you and says "my donuts taste like shit". You check out your supplies and find out that one or more of your suppliers gave you bad eggs or bad flour. Or maybe your owen malfunctioned and didn't bake them properly. Then you tell the customer "hey, you are right but it wasn't my fault, see, the supplier gave me bad flour/my owen is malfunctioning. And this is a money business so it's okay that I sold you shitty donuts. You should try to see it from my perspective".

The difference in the case of the donut seller is that health inspectors would turn up at your door the next day and you would be in deep trouble.

I agree with the poster saying that your stance is very American. Game industry is one of the most underdeveloped and undervalued industries where neither customer rights or value of labour is properly recognized. I see the wisdom in seeing how the industry works from within and adjusting to make the best of it as a developer in the system, but applying the same rationale to the customer's end is borderline criminal. If the game industry were half as developed as any consumer goods based industry, we wouldn't be getting half the downright lying PR bullshit that we often get or con-man products like Aliens: Colonial Marines that literally practice conning.

Of course, that is not exclusive to games industry, that's basically how the world runs but the games industry have the distinction of lacking a codified consensus on industry standards, regulations and customer rights.

 

[Tigranes]

Yeah, but he's not saying you should take customers' stockholm syndrome that far. Boring, I know, when not everything is EXTREME. (Certainly it's true the industry is underdeveloped on that front, and also true for employee rights.)

Anthony Davis I know you guys have done this. Best CRPG lists at Obsidian. :D Or consistently mentioned favourites. Alternatively: what is the most replayed Obsidian game amongst the employees?

 

[Roguey]

I'm not surprised that Absurdian is full of Fatlus.

 

[Infinitron]

I'm not surprised that Absurdian is full of Fatlus.

DOES JOSH SAWYER LIKE ATLUS GAMES??? Anthony please answer this very important question

 

[HobGoblin42]

DOES JOSH SAWYER LIKE ATLUS GAMES??? Anthony please answer this very important question

 

[Roguey]

I don't even dislike Atlus, I just think deriding fanboys and cute nicknames are hilarious.