Developer Story Time with Old Man Davis

[Crispy]

Anthony, I think the one thing that most of us would like to know is,

in your restraining order against Roguey did you choose the standard five hundred foot version or the more prestigious five thousand foot variety like Josh did?

 

[Zed]

South Park has the potential to become a huge seller. Not necessarily a great RPG, but a decent enough game and a big ROI for everyone involved.

Anthony Davis
Do you still play (remote) tabletop with the Obsidian guys? How do you stay in touch?
And to they talk about South Park? What's your impression of the game so far?

 

[dunno lah]

arguably South Park + Russian MMO is as low as they've gotten, but I wouldn't mind an Obsidian that keeps going the way they have done, plus a side strand of Kickstarted P:E.

That is a silly thing to say. South Park is a massive franchise. It has better global recognition than the best selling video game. For any fan wanting an interactive mishmash of the best of South Park in game format, that's a dream come true. And when the creators wanted to do a new game, they went straight to Obsidian, not anybody else. That's high praise. The only thing that is shit about Obsidian doing a South Park game is your perception of it based on your narrow perception.

Maybe it's largely because they played FO1 and FO2 and saw some South Park references...

 

[villain of the story]

arguably South Park + Russian MMO is as low as they've gotten, but I wouldn't mind an Obsidian that keeps going the way they have done, plus a side strand of Kickstarted P:E.

That is a silly thing to say. South Park is a massive franchise. It has better global recognition than the best selling video game. For any fan wanting an interactive mishmash of the best of South Park in game format, that's a dream come true. And when the creators wanted to do a new game, they went straight to Obsidian, not anybody else. That's high praise. The only thing that is shit about Obsidian doing a South Park game is your perception of it based on your narrow perception.

Maybe it's largely because they played FO1 and FO2 and saw some South Park references...

Yeah, a total of one single reference to Cheezy Poofs in Fallout 2 must have made it. Regardless, to think that such decisions would be made based on mere fucking references...

Where's the dumbfuck tag when you need one?

 

[dunno lah]

Well...I just think it's such a strange coincidence that Matt and Trey hired Obsidian, who happened to have devs who put in South Park references in those games.

 

[villain of the story]

Are you 12 or what?

 

[Anthony Davis]

South Park has the potential to become a huge seller. Not necessarily a great RPG, but a decent enough game and a big ROI for everyone involved.

Anthony Davis
Do you still play (remote) tabletop with the Obsidian guys? How do you stay in touch?
And to they talk about South Park? What's your impression of the game so far?

We ended the Scales of War campaign because too many people thought it boring. Josh then started a new campaign that he created that I am on the emails for, but am not playing. I would like to play again.

 

[Roguey]

Yeah, a total of one single reference to Cheezy Poofs in Fallout 2 must have made it. Regardless, to think that such decisions would be made based on mere fucking references...

Where's the dumbfuck tag when you need one?

In the first Fallout if Deputy Kenny dies during the fight with Decker the PC says "Oh my God! They killed Kenny! Those bastards!" Two references.

 

[curry]

Anthony Davis what's your source?

 

[Gakkone]

Yeah Anthony, what's your source of AWESOME!?

 

[villain of the story]

Yeah, a total of one single reference to Cheezy Poofs in Fallout 2 must have made it. Regardless, to think that such decisions would be made based on mere fucking references...

Where's the dumbfuck tag when you need one?

In the first Fallout if Deputy Kenny dies during the fight with Decker the PC says "Oh my God! They killed Kenny! Those bastards!" Two references.

Hadn't noticed that. I didn't start watching South Park until 1999, I think.

 

[Jaesun]

Anthony Davis any thoughts on the now much more expanded memory capacity now for the XBox One and PS4?

 

[dunno lah]

Are you 12 or what?

I wish...

 

[Ebonsword]

The Standing Stones is one of my favorite blobbers, probably because it was the first one I remember beating and it had great music.

Was that the game with "Dispell" and "Datspell"? If so, I you for you beating it.

That game was really damn hard from what I remember.

 

[Cursed Platypus]

I want moar

 

[Name]

something must have happened

 

[Cursed Platypus]

something must have happened

Yeah they probably made a new thread in GD. That way only oldfags can see it.

 

[Haba]

The Man got to him.

 

[Horus]

Yeah they probably made a new thread in GD. That way only oldfags can see it.

 

[tuluse]

Anthony Davis I have a series of questions for you.

How much work is it for Obsidian switch engines for RPGs these days? Do you guys have extensive libraries of "rpg stuff" that you just need to integrate with the new engines? Do you have to write a bunch of stuff from scratch?

I realize these questions are just about impossible to answer with any precision, so this is the context I'm interested in.

Using Unity3D for P:E. How much work do you suspect it is to add things like tracking factions or inventories or c&c? With Obsidian's experience making RPGs, can do a lot of this really quickly and thus cut down on development time? I ask because VD is convinced it takes 3 years to make an RPG from scratch based on what Tim Cain said. I think they're not really making one from scratch because they have a lot of code they can re-use.

Feel free to tell me this is impossible to answer in a meaningful way.

 

[Rake]

Just continiue posting. This thread was way too interesting to die.

 

[Anthony Davis]

Anthony Davis I have a series of questions for you.

How much work is it for Obsidian switch engines for RPGs these days? Do you guys have extensive libraries of "rpg stuff" that you just need to integrate with the new engines? Do you have to write a bunch of stuff from scratch?

I realize these questions are just about impossible to answer with any precision, so this is the context I'm interested in.

Using Unity3D for P:E. How much work do you suspect it is to add things like tracking factions or inventories or c&c? With Obsidian's experience making RPGs, can do a lot of this really quickly and thus cut down on development time? I ask because VD is convinced it takes 3 years to make an RPG from scratch based on what Tim Cain said. I think they're not really making one from scratch because they have a lot of code they can re-use.

Feel free to tell me this is impossible to answer in a meaningful way.

If a programmer/designer already *know* how to make a faction system, for example, then it is simply learning how to make it *again* in the new tech, Unity in this case. That is really all the learning curve would be. Tim Cain is very experienced and very skilled, even if he has not made an explicit faction system, I am sure he has made a system that is similar or identical to a faction system before.

Now creating a new system from scratch in a new tech base, Unity in this case, would be far more challenging. If Josh and Adam are keeping a good reign on things (and I assume they are) they will limit the number of new systems that need to be created from scratch.

Now, if the tech is a constant, or near constant as it was for Obsidian's 3 Onyx games: Aliens: RPG, Dungeon Siege 3, and South Park the RPG, it was easy to take systems I wrote for Aliens and put them in Dungeon Siege 3 and South Park the RPG, even though the code bases are actually divergent.

Example: it took me a couple of months to create the Mission/Objective Sytems for Aliens RPG, which were actually very complex because you could create ANY mission or objective goal, including plot items, that you wanted. I was able to bring that system into Dungeon Siege 3 in like... 2 days and make it work AND work better. South Park too only took a couple of days.

Does that answer your question?

 

[tuluse]

I think it does. The example was really enlightening.

Vault Dweller how does this make you feel about the short dev time for W2 and PE?

 

[Anthony Davis]

Another example I can think of, that I believe is Tim Cain being awesome, but it could have been someone else (Chris Jones maybe?), was the radiation system in Fallout. Fallout already had a poison system you see, and someone had come up with an enormous and complex radiation system. They were going to cut it because they didn't have time to implement it, but then Tim Cain (or someone awesome) said that they could instead make the radiation system based on the poison system with some minor changes. Boom, Fallout had radiation, which was kind of appropriate.

I might have some details wrong there, it was before my time, but I think that is how the story was told to me by Chris Avellone.

 

[Vault Dweller]

I think it does. The example was really enlightening.

Vault Dweller how does this make you feel about the short dev time for W2 and PE?

My opinion is unchanged.

First, things like faction system or radiation systems are fairly minor (compared to more complex systems; and what Tim Cain did was the only logical course of action - take the poison system and tweak it). Second, the libraries and code examples help, but not that much. It took us a lot of work, for example, to change AoD character/combat systems from R3 to R4, even though it's the same system and the programmer is familiar with the engine and the system overall. It's the little things that take the most time.

So, as I said before, getting to the playable state fast is easy, if you know what to do and have the code. Getting it to the state where it's good and work as you want it to work isn't.

Third, Tim Cain said what he said after working on Fallout, Arcanum, ToEE, Bloodlines. It's safe to assume that he had the knowledge and the libraries and the code and the experience, and yet after all that he said that it takes at least 3 years to make a full-scale RPG. Now, maybe he lied, maybe he exaggerated, maybe he forgot that had the code and the libraries, but what he said didn't go against what we witnessed over the years. A decent RPG - 3 years, a decent sequel with the existing engine/systems/basic assets - 1.5 years.
Fargo's own track record doesn't disagree with this either.

So, maybe Fargo will surprise me and deliver a great RPG in exactly 18 months. Maybe Obsidian will do the same and we'll all praise Unity. Then again, maybe they won't...