Interview From Torment to Eternity: MCA Interview at Gamasutra

[Infinitron]

G Ziets

 

[Roguey]

As much as I like MotB and as proud as I am of it, it didn't need the romances.

I disagree. Not being able to flirt with Safiya would have been very odd to me. History's already repeating itself in other ways so why shy away from that particular aspect of it?

 

[Anthony Davis]

As much as I like MotB and as proud as I am of it, it didn't need the romances.

I disagree. Not being able to flirt with Safiya would have been very odd to me. History's already repeating itself in other ways so why shy away from that particular aspect of it?

I don't mind flirting and I don't equate it with romance.

 

[Lockkaliber]

I don't agree with Josh Sawyer all the time, but on this point he and I see eye to eye. The only game to have done romance right was Tim Schaeffer's Full Throttle.

There was nothing wrong with Safiya. It made sense given the circumstances and it didn't get gross. Gann was superfluous, sure.

As much as I like MotB and as proud as I am of it, it didn't need the romances.

From a DEVELOPER point of view though, I found it FASCINATING because George Zeits and Chris Avellone, two master writers, worked, discussed, disagreed, and collaborated on a lot of the character dialogues and romances.

Chris I think had a lot more in common with Josh, and George probably a lot more with Gaider. In the end, they both learned something from each other.

I would pay money to be able to watch these design meetings.

 

[Roguey]

I don't mind flirting and I don't equate it with romance.

That's pretty much the extent of it though? You have back and forth banter here and there throughout the game, then when you're about to enter the Betrayer's Gate she asks what you're doing later and if you think your feelings are the result of her being an aspect of the Founder and the PC having Akachi within him. Then she helps you in your dreamscape; her presence by itself would be odd if not for the link you established at the gate but her not being there would feel anticlimactic considering her stake in the matter.

Oh sure there's a marriage in the epilogue, but that's an epilogue.

 

[Anthony Davis]

I don't mind flirting and I don't equate it with romance.

That's pretty much the extent of it though? You have back and forth banter here and there throughout the game, then when you're about to enter the Betrayer's Gate she asks what you're doing later and if you think your feelings are the result of her being an aspect of the Founder and the PC having Akachi within him. Then she helps you in your dreamscape; her presence by itself would be odd if not for the link you established at the gate but her not being there would feel anticlimactic considering her stake in the matter.
Oh sure there's a marriage in the epilogue, but that's an epilogue.

It's a compelling point.

I do think Zeits and Avellone were light handed with how they handled romances, but I think there was ample motivation for the characters without romance.

 

[Gozma]

I'd have preferred a midway response to Safiya being into you right before the endgame.

'I'm not against it baby but let's try to sort out the "soul fragment of a star-crossed lover of a dude that metaphysically carjacked me" stuff after we have collected all three triforce pieces from three different worlds and then defeated Mother Brain'

 

[piydek]

They want to write them, and Bioware hires writers who want to write them. Patrick Weekes wrote this thing ages ago.

Wow. This pathetic reply to Sawyer's post makes it so fucking clear to me why i love Obsidian and can't stand Bioware's practices. Just about all of them. This shit from Weekes resembles an insecure child trying to somewhat aggressively "argue" with a thought-through and mature post. Truly fucking pathetic.

 

[Anthony Davis]

They want to write them, and Bioware hires writers who want to write them. Patrick Weekes wrote this thing ages ago.

Wow. This pathetic reply to Sawyer's post makes it so fucking clear to me why i love Obsidian and can't stand Bioware's practices. Just about all of them. This shit from Weekes resembles an insecure child trying to somewhat aggressively "argue" with a thought-through and mature post. Truly fucking pathetic.

Yeah, that's pretty terrible.

 

[ironyuri]

Corwin didn't seem to think so, but then he was too busy wiping the jizz off the corners of his mouth.

 

[tuluse]

Going back to the OP for a moment. It is interesting that a lot of people are able to intuit how much effort and planning was put forth in a kickstarter. VD talk all he wants about how Obsidian told us more actual info than InXile did, but it was still clear on some level that Fargo had a firmer idea on what his game would be (he just didn't tell us).

 

[Roguey]

Going back to the OP for a moment. It is interesting that a lot of people are able to intuit how much effort and planning was put forth in a kickstarter. VD talk all he wants about how Obsidian told us more actual info than InXile did, but it was still clear on some level that Fargo had a firmer idea on what his game would be (he just didn't tell us).

You sound biased.
Fargo: A sequel to Wasteland that takes some influence from Fallout.
Obsidian: All the Infinity Engine games combined into one supergame.

 

[J_C]

but it was still clear on some level that Fargo had a firmer idea on what his game would be (he just didn't tell us).

Oh really? You know what Fargo knew? That it will be similar to Wasteland 1, it will have similar skills and combat. That's it!

 

[tuluse]

Ok, but MCA just told us they threw their pitch together in a week, while Fargo was trying to sell W2 for months.

 

[Brother None]

Yeah. Fargo had much of the story outline written with Jason D Anderson, a lot of which they're still using though no doubt some things have changed. He knew he wanted it to be party-based and turn-based too, that was part of the pitch.

You could say he had a firmer idea, with an established setting and more story written, but those are still relatively simple, pitch-level things. It's not like he was much closer to having systems designed, an engine chosen, or any kind of showcase models or anything.

 

[Infinitron]

Wasteland 2 has been in development for a longer time. Wait to see what Eternity will have in five months before talking.

 

[tuluse]

I didn't mean to imply any of that. I just found it interesting that people can intuitively tell how much time and effort has been put into a pitch.

 

[Vault Dweller]

Going back to the OP for a moment. It is interesting that a lot of people are able to intuit how much effort and planning was put forth in a kickstarter. VD talk all he wants about how Obsidian told us more actual info than InXile did, but it was still clear on some level that Fargo had a firmer idea on what his game would be (he just didn't tell us).

I hope you're intuitive enough to realize that these are two very different and unrelated things. Besides, did anyone doubt it? First, it's a sequel (established setting and gameplay), second, Fargo tried pitching it over years, so he clearly put in a lot of thoughts into it, whereas Obsidian was merely testing the waters and hitting the goal in a day had caught them unprepared (which should have been clear to anyone).

My point was that once Obsidian realized that their KS is a multi-million dollar one, they started pumping out info regularly and are still very open about it. Fargo isn't, which means that he doesn't want to and nothing else.

 

[Brother None]

My point was that once Obsidian realized that their KS is a multi-million dollar one, they started pumping out info regularly and are still very open about it. Fargo isn't, which means that he doesn't want to and nothing else.

And that he's less able to, a little of both those things. Fargo is the one who handles a lot of ideas and stimulates for crowd interaction but he's just one guy who is producing not just this but also working on other projects (their next project, the Bard's Tale on mobiles and getting rights to old Bard's Tales, etc etc). inXile is a smaller outfit. That's something they'd like to address (by scheduling more time spent on this stuff) but that wasn't really in Wasteland 2's budget/time-frame of design. Not really looking for excuses, just painting the reality of it, a lot of stuff currently comes more or less from me as a volunteer suggesting and pushing for things, like the Ask A Dev week.

Like I said, it's something they'd like to address and fix on the longer term, but there's no denying Wasteland 2's first few months of development were waaaay more quiet than people were hoping they'd be.

 

[hiver]

I think Fargo and his team are a bit... rusty, when it comes to actually communicating with their backer base.
So far, its mostly been that old "but we are listening/reading your posts guys, honest!" ive been hearing since Interplay forums.
A few polls here and there, nothing major.

They also took a bit of a time out, but it seems they are trying to get down with all this new and weird crowdfunding and involving your backers into the game design stuff.

And it is understandable, them preferring to build something substantial to show, themselves.
After all, look at what happens when you open up your pre-production stage to the "public"...

As i said, just a bit rusty.

 

[Brother None]

Having to change the mindset is part of it too, yeah. We've got some guys from back in the BIS days who remember what it's like and are interested, and some for who it's all new. They'll get better at it, since they realize it's something that's been a bit lacking, though things like the response to Project Eternity's art here and there (especially on NeoGAF) doesn't help encourage much openness.

"We've been reading, honest" may -seem- suspicious but it's pretty much true. Not that I'd claim they read every single post, but again, they have me to highlight suggestions/threads that I feel are key, and often enough I can see from interaction with the likes of Brian or Chris that they're responding to feedback found on the forums. You can see the same from Brian's twitter feed. And I know Brian enjoys reading the Codex, haha. But again, there's only so many hours in the day, so when you're asking for more crowd interaction you are in fact asking for them to spend less time on the game. For Wasteland 2, that was just not in the way they budgeted things. For the next project, they're looking at ways to improve on that.

 

[hiver]

There may be a few new tricks those old dogs must or will learn through this process, but there certainly is a few things the "fanbase" should, must learn too.
Such as those buffoons bewailing about concept WORK IN PROGRESS art despite all those "this is WIP! Dont go all aaargghh!" plastered all over it.

Unfortunately, one negative buffoon gets noticed more strongly then ten positive or normal responses on forums.

 

[tuluse]

I hope you're intuitive enough to realize that these are two very different and unrelated things. Besides, did anyone doubt it? First, it's a sequel (established setting and gameplay), second, Fargo tried pitching it over years, so he clearly put in a lot of thoughts into it, whereas Obsidian was merely testing the waters and hitting the goal in a day had caught them unprepared (which should have been clear to anyone).

My point was that once Obsidian realized that their KS is a multi-million dollar one, they started pumping out info regularly and are still very open about it. Fargo isn't, which means that he doesn't want to and nothing else.

Plenty of people argued here and elsewhere that Obsidian's pitch wasn't put together in a few days, and they had spent time on it.

 

[Brother None]

Plenty of people argued here and elsewhere that Obsidian's pitch wasn't put together in a few days, and they had spent time on it.

When you first announced the Kickstarter, you didn't really give any details. Was that a deliberate strategy, or where you actually making it up as you went along?

CA: To be honest, we had been working on elements of the title only a short time before the Kickstarter started, so there weren't actually that many details to reveal. We did have design time over the course of the Kickstarter to discuss those design ideas, we had design meetings, proposed the classes, discussed the system stuff.

There wasn't a huge extensive design doc before we started. There were just some basic principles for the kind of game we wanted to make, and then it just kind of developed over the course of the Kickstarter.

I have no idea how long that is exactly. We can only guess. But "not long" is just a fact, per Chris Avellone. A short time.

 

[tuluse]

We know that now, but not when the pitch was happening.