George Ziets opening a new RPG studio - Digimancy Entertainment

[hexer]

Anyone knows when will the next video be released?
Monday?

 

[Infinitron]

Matt seems to prefer releasing his videos on Sunday afternoons, US time.

 

[biggestboss]

 

[G Ziets]

G Ziets I have 4 questions if you wouldn't mind indulging me (well, maybe 5, since you may have to define what you consider a "classic" rpg in order to answer them since everyone has their own definition).

1. Which systems/design choices present in the classics has been lost in modern interpretations of the genre that you would like to/feel should be brought back.
   
2. What new addition to the genre (if any) in modern interpretations do you consider to be the biggest improvement on the classics.
3. Are there any new innovations you personally would want to make (that you are willing to share with us here).
4. What do you feel is the best way to innovate, incremental changes or big, sweeping changes.

These could potentially be very long answers, so I’ll try to be brief-ish.

For me personally, there are two eras of “classic” RPGs. The first are the RPGs of the 80s to early 90s, when most of the foundational RPG series originated – Ultima, Wizardry, Might & Magic, Wasteland, the D&D Gold Box games, Quest for Glory, Starflight, and so on. Those games were highly influential on me when I was growing up. My second set of classics are the (mostly isometric) RPGs of the late 1990s to early 2000s – Fallout 1 & 2, Baldur’s Gate 1 & 2, Planescape: Torment, Arcanum, Morrowind, King of Dragon Pass, NWN (at least for the toolset and mods), etc. Those games had a greater impact on me professionally, if only because they directly established the style and conventions in which I have worked.

1. Which systems/design choices present in the classics has been lost in modern interpretations of the genre that you would like to/feel should be brought back.

I’m going to take a high-level view for this response, and I’m also going to focus on commercial games, not indies. The biggest change that I have seen is an ever-increasing desire to appeal to a broader market and raise production values. This isn’t news to the Codex, but it means that comparatively fewer resources are spent on (for example) narrative branching, side content that not all players will see, or nontraditional settings. It also means that many commercial projects are forced to include features like multiplayer because it is perceived that these features significantly increase sales (sometimes true, often debatable) – unfortunately, multiplayer and other higher production values make it more expensive and time-consuming to deliver true choices and reactivity.

One thing that’s largely missing in present-day commercial RPGs is the fluidity and experimentation of the 80s-era classics. Commercial RPGs today are far less likely to diverge from the standard formulas because failure is so costly. Instead, the experimental work has shifted to the indie scene (which I often enjoy, as a player, more than bigger budget RPGs).

I strongly suspect that the dichotomy between big budget, mass market games and more experimental indies will persist long-term. Design choices that prove highly successful in breakout indie games will migrate to bigger-budget games because they’ve been proven to resonate with audiences. Less successful innovations will fade away or remain confined to indies. Essentially, the indie game scene will serve as the primordial soup from which only the best/most successful ideas will rise and be appropriated by the risk-averse mass market.

2. What new addition to the genre (if any) in modern interpretations do you consider to be the biggest improvement on the classics.

Modern games have delivered considerable quality of life improvements for players – UI, controls, journal, automapping, etc. We’ve gradually developed a common language for presentation that makes it far easier to navigate a new RPG. Tutorialization has come a long way too. I know some gamers miss the days when you had to read a thick manual before you could make sense of a new RPG, but I don’t (mostly because I have far less time now… and far more games I want to play).

RPGs today usually have stronger and richer content. Even in open world games, design teams try to ensure that players have plenty to engage them. There's less aimless wandering through wilderness and dungeons with nothing but random monster encounters to occupy players. When designing our games, we pay more attention to pacing, content variety, and content density. Partly that’s because there is so much competition – if your game is perceived as dull or unpolished, players have many other options. Partly it’s due to an evolving understanding of what makes for compelling content.

On the whole, writing and storytelling have also improved in modern RPGs. When I started in 2001, it was common for writing to be done by anyone, regardless of experience or talent. Producers, programmers, and designers with no writing background could be tasked to write dialogue or develop a story (and it showed). In most RPGs, writing is held to a higher standard nowadays… which doesn’t mean it’s always great, but on average, the quality is better. More RPGs are capable of making a genuine emotional connection with players – when I got started in the industry, very few games had achieved that or even aspired to it.

3. Are there any new innovations you personally would want to make (that you are willing to share with us here).

I can’t share anything specific right now, but in general, I prefer game systems that are reflections of the setting and the narrative, as opposed to standing largely apart from them. It drives me nuts when a game’s systems have little connection to what’s unique about a particular game – e.g., using a generic D&D-based system when they could have created something far more evocative that grounds the player more firmly in the world or narrative. I’d rather zero in on what’s unique to a particular game or setting and find ways to focus the game systems around those elements.

I also like hybridization – using systems from other genres (often strategy) in the context of an RPG.

4. What do you feel is the best way to innovate, incremental changes or big, sweeping changes.

Depends on the game. If you’re working in an existing franchise, or if you’re making a genre game where your target audience has strong expectations, incremental changes are usually best. Designers should get to know the franchise or genre very well, figure out the things that frustrate fans the most, and find ways to fix those things, rather than making sweeping changes. This also tends to be the safer route from a financial perspective.

In cases where you’re making a new game from scratch, without strong expectations from your audience, a more innovative approach can push the genre forward in unexpected ways. The drawbacks: usually this approach takes longer because you’re developing entirely new, unproven systems that players may or may not like, and it’s financially riskier because it might turn out to be a total flop.

As a player, I selfishly prefer big, sweeping changes because I love to try out new game systems and storytelling methods (especially if I’m inspired by some element of the design and it sparks ideas for my own designs). As a designer, I’d lean somewhere in the middle, mixing the unfamiliar (sweeping changes or hybridization on certain elements of the game) with the familiar in other parts of the game.

 

[Nano]

On the whole, writing and storytelling have also improved in modern RPGs. When I started in 2001, it was common for writing to be done by anyone, regardless of experience or talent. Producers, programmers, and designers with no writing background could be tasked to write dialogue or develop a story (and it showed). In most RPGs, writing is held to a higher standard nowadays… which doesn’t mean it’s always great, but on average, the quality is better. More RPGs are capable of making a genuine emotional connection with players – when I got started in the industry, very few games had achieved that or even aspired to it.

That's a very controversial statement on this forum.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

On the whole, writing and storytelling have also improved in modern RPGs. When I started in 2001, it was common for writing to be done by anyone, regardless of experience or talent. Producers, programmers, and designers with no writing background could be tasked to write dialogue or develop a story (and it showed). In most RPGs, writing is held to a higher standard nowadays… which doesn’t mean it’s always great, but on average, the quality is better. More RPGs are capable of making a genuine emotional connection with players – when I got started in the industry, very few games had achieved that or even aspired to it.

That's a very controversial statement on this forum.

While it's true that a handful of titles made in the late 90s/early 00s had good writing, the writing in most other RPGs and RPGs before that was in general pretty basic if it existed at all beyond a pretext for combat/exploring.
At the beginning of his statement was "On the whole," which I'd agree with. If you're a storyfag, there's not that many games released before Fallout that will interest you.

 

[Roguey]

I get what he means; Fallout had a handful of jarringly bad lines.

It also means that many commercial projects are forced to include features like multiplayer because it is perceived that these features significantly increase sales (sometimes true, often debatable) – unfortunately, multiplayer and other higher production values make it more expensive and time-consuming to deliver true choices and reactivity.

How about that Wasteland 3, huh?

 

[Prime Junta]

RPGs today usually have stronger and richer content. Even in open world games, design teams try to ensure that players have plenty to engage them. There's less aimless wandering through wilderness and dungeons with nothing but random monster encounters to occupy players. When designing our games, we pay more attention to pacing, content variety, and content density. Partly that’s because there is so much competition – if your game is perceived as dull or unpolished, players have many other options. Partly it’s due to an evolving understanding of what makes for compelling content.

I have to take issue with this, at least when it comes to major, mainstream RPGs. Consider for example Baldur's Gate 2 -> Dragon Age: Origins -> DA2 -> DA: Inquisition, or Witcher 1 -> Witcher 2 -> Witcher 3. Or Morrowind -> Oblivion -> Skyrim. Or, to take a really mainstream sort-of-RPG-ey example, Assassins Creed: Odyssey. I'm seeing the same pattern in all of these: cookie-cutter content -- sometimes actually procedurally-generated -- going from nonexistent to an optional side dish to a mandatory (at least on higher difficulties) grind that accounts for most of the playtime.

 

[Lyric Suite]

I can concede writing in games was always garbage in the past, but i'm not seeing the "improvement" in modern games.

What i'm seeing with modern games is something analogous to what we are seeing on TV. The level of writing has become more standardized, you are rarely going to see something as comically badly written as the A-Team in a TV show but at the same time everybody is just following the same script so every show ends up being the same, every line of dialog copy pasted from one another, every turn in the story completely predictable etc.

Older games had more of an "amateur" quality to them where as now they seem more "professional" but at the same time more bland and formulaic.

 

[Lyric Suite]

BTW, i don't really like the way games are becoming more and more like TV shows and films.

I don't want to "experience" a movie when i'm playing a game, i want to be the one who gets to decide what to experience and how. I want the game to present a world that i can explore at my discretion. If i wanted to be a passive agent i'd watch an actual movie.

I'm preaching to the choir here at this point, but as we all know, the problem with modern games is too much presentation, not enough actual "content".

 

[Sentinel]

I think it is terribly ironic how people on the Codex complain about samey games when they're also the ones that demand "choices" in how they experience every game. That's exactly what has happened to triple A games. Every game nowadays has the 2 meme approaches typical of RPGs - stealth or combat, meaningless dialogue trees, and worthless floods of loot and stats. Meanwhile, any game that doesn't have any of these elements (linear games most prominently, but some open world ones as well) are dubbed "movie games" and disregarded completely.

 

[Lyric Suite]

Preaching to the choir intensifies:



This is what we want. We don't formulaic "choices", we want concrete interactivity with meaningful outcomes to what we do in the game.

 

[ERYFKRAD]

BTW, i don't really like the way games are becoming more and more like TV shows and films.

This is my biggest beef with AAA gaming.

 

[Lyric Suite]

Can't wait until Netflix starts making games.

 

[Quillon]

For me, RPG hybrids are games with strong RPG elements (solid narrative, choices and consequences, character management, etc.) but nontraditional gameplay. A good example would be King of Dragon Pass. Personally, I’m a fan of strategy games (especially grand strategy and turn-based strategy), so my hybrid ideas often borrow elements from that genre, or at least use them as a starting point.

I also like hybridization – using systems from other genres (often strategy) in the context of an RPG.

What kind of systems?

What do you think of a king-type protag; who does "combat" through his troops and he's essentially there to boost morale and order them around, maybe fights too like in Total War games, and outside of battle he's the usual walkie-talkie-decision makey RPG protag? Would a game with such combat count/be feasible to make as an RPG in your book?

Also what do you think of systemic character development like PoE's disposition reactions/relationship ship system or TOW's flaw system? Should such things really be tied to systems rather than tailor-made individually?

 

[Sharpedge]

G Ziets thanks for the reply.

 

[LudensCogitet]

BTW, i don't really like the way games are becoming more and more like TV shows and films.

I don't want to "experience" a movie when i'm playing a game, i want to be the one who gets to decide what to experience and how. I want the game to present a world that i can explore at my discretion. If i wanted to be a passive agent i'd watch an actual movie.

I'm preaching to the choir here at this point, but as we all know, the problem with modern games is too much presentation, not enough actual "content".

I would brofist were I not a newfag.

What you're saying ties directly into "quality" of writing. A combat log in an RPG isn't "good writing", but if I read:
"The golem smashes brohymer for 30 dmg. Brohymer is near death." Followed by "Magedude incinerates golem for 80 dmg. Golem is defeated".

You can get excited remembering how clutch the battle was and how *you* managed to win. Replace that clunky log with 3 paragraphs of stuff you had nothing to do with. Is the latter "better"?

 

[Lyric Suite]

For me, RPG hybrids are games with strong RPG elements (solid narrative, choices and consequences, character management, etc.) but nontraditional gameplay. A good example would be King of Dragon Pass. Personally, I’m a fan of strategy games (especially grand strategy and turn-based strategy), so my hybrid ideas often borrow elements from that genre, or at least use them as a starting point.

I also like hybridization – using systems from other genres (often strategy) in the context of an RPG.

What kind of systems?

What do you think of a king-type protag; who does "combat" through his troops and he's essentially there to boost morale and order them around, maybe fights too like in Total War games, and outside of battle he's the usual walkie-talkie-decision makey RPG protag? Would a game with such combat count/be feasible to make as an RPG in your book?

Also what do you think of systemic character development like PoE's disposition reactions/relationship ship system or TOW's flaw system? Should such things really be tied to systems rather than tailor-made individually?

Those ideas are fine for a combat game, but not for an RPG. Call me quaint, by i just like the idea of starting from nothing and slowly getting up and building my character.

And i like to savor the journey too. I hate how modern games just load you with experience and items to the point you don't even get the change to taste your progress as you go along. If there one thing i really liked about Baldur's Gate 1 is the slow leveling and the fact items had real value. That +2 sword is one of the most memorable find in the game. Really liked that.

 

[G Ziets]

G Ziets

What was the idea behind Safiya. To me, she was the weakest companion in the game as her motivations were a bit unguided. She was unaware of her 'mothers' plot, despite being involved in it so completely. Was she just a honeypot?

When designing companions, I try to use each one to represent a different perspective on the game’s central questions / themes. In that sense, I considered Safiya to be, if anything, the most important companion in the game. She represents one half of the relationship (Founder – Akachi) that’s at the heart of the whole story. Her connection to the player is an echo of that original relationship, just as she and the player are themselves echoes of the Founder and Akachi. Depending upon the player’s choices, the “echoes” can eventually come into their own, take the places of the originals (Safiya can absorb the other parts of the Founder’s soul, while players can bind the Faceless Man inside their own soul), and through their love for each other, restore the relationship that the Founder thought was irretrievably lost.

At least, that was the intent. Whether the implementation is strong enough to support the ambition is another question. Safiya (and, to some extent, all the companions that were not written by Avellone) was a casualty of Mask’s short development cycle. Her dialogue was divided between multiple writers, and we never had time to give her an iteration / polish pass, which could have significantly improved her role in the story.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

G Ziets Is there a list of companions across all games you've worked on that you've written(or partially written) anywhere?

 

[hexer]

G Ziets have you already decided on the game engine?
Will it be an in-house, Unreal, Unity or some other engine?

 

[Quillon]

For me, RPG hybrids are games with strong RPG elements (solid narrative, choices and consequences, character management, etc.) but nontraditional gameplay. A good example would be King of Dragon Pass. Personally, I’m a fan of strategy games (especially grand strategy and turn-based strategy), so my hybrid ideas often borrow elements from that genre, or at least use them as a starting point.

I also like hybridization – using systems from other genres (often strategy) in the context of an RPG.

What kind of systems?

What do you think of a king-type protag; who does "combat" through his troops and he's essentially there to boost morale and order them around, maybe fights too like in Total War games, and outside of battle he's the usual walkie-talkie-decision makey RPG protag? Would a game with such combat count/be feasible to make as an RPG in your book?

Also what do you think of systemic character development like PoE's disposition reactions/relationship ship system or TOW's flaw system? Should such things really be tied to systems rather than tailor-made individually?

Those ideas are fine for a combat game, but not for an RPG. Call me quaint, by i just like the idea of starting from nothing and slowly getting up and building my character.

And i like to savor the journey too. I hate how modern games just load you with experience and items to the point you don't even get the change to taste your progress as you go along. If there one thing i really liked about Baldur's Gate 1 is the slow leveling and the fact items had real value. That +2 sword is one of the most memorable find in the game. Really liked that.

If action games and even adventure games(disco) can be RPGs so can other genres imo, it doesn't always have to be the usual zero to hero protag in a type of gameplay we've accustomed to.

Plus I always thought its a waste making gigantic games and only allowing one way to play it. Just hire another studio and let them repurpose your already created worldspace & assets to tell a new story in it, preferably in another genre. Nowadays devs too can see this and started reusing their single player gameworlds by adding online elements or allowing/supporting mods more extensively but they could be so much more efficient.

I'd like Rockstar/Firaxis/SEGA etc to hire RPG devs to make RPGs in GTA's & RDR's gameworlds, RPGs using Total War's/X-com's systems & combat. Like Larian hiring Logic Artists or Bethesda hiring Obsidian.

 

[Prime Junta]

And i like to savor the journey too. I hate how modern games just load you with experience and items to the point you don't even get the change to taste your progress as you go along. If there one thing i really liked about Baldur's Gate 1 is the slow leveling and the fact items had real value. That +2 sword is one of the most memorable find in the game. Really liked that.

I strongly agree with you about the "taste" but I think your diagnosis is mistaken.

Monty Haul or frequent but less impactful leveling as such aren't necessarily problems, BG2 is very much a Monty Haul and the items in it are a lot of fun. And the ur-Fallouts have you leveling up pretty frequently. The main problem with progression in most modern RPGs isn't the proliferation of loot either.

The problem is the utterly braindead MMO-style tiered/levelled loot/enemies system. The archetypical example of this is Assassins Creed (again). Fighting something at level 5 is almost exactly the same as fighting something at level 50, the only thing that's different is a couple of flashy moves you've picked up on the way that look pretty cool but don't ultimately change much.

The reason isn't that there are 50 levels or a mountain of loot. The reason is that everything scales. At level 5 with a level 5 sword you do 5 points of damage per hit and enemies have 20 HP, they'll go down in four hits. At level 50 with a level 50 sword, you do 5000 points of damage per hit and enemies have 20000 HP and they still go down in four hits. There's no difference. Most of the time the enemies are simply level-scaled variants of each other too.

The main consequence is that it forces you to grind in order to upgrade your gear, because if you don't, you end up doing, say, 100 points of damage per hit instead of 5000, and the enemy that was supposed to go down in four hits suddenly takes you 200 hits and you spend, like, 15 minutes whittling him down. This feeds back to the proliferation of cookie-cutter/proc generated quests that provide the grist for your mill to grind, and to the massive proliferation of gear that's identical in every way except cosmetics and level.

The other consequence is that it lets the devs force your progression in an ostensibly open-world game. Sure, you can technically go anywhere from day one, but wander off the beaten path and you'll face mooks that will splat you into paste with a single hit while you have to hit them 1000 times to bring them down.

So I don't care how often or how rarely you level, or even about how much or how blingy loot there is, if this type of unholy "progression" can be avoided. More lateral progression, less vertical progression, less numbers bloat plox. This is one thing both Pillars of Eternities got right by the way -- items stay viable for a long time and there is a good balance between vertical and lateral progression.

 

[Nano]

Safiya (and, to some extent, all the companions that were not written by Avellone) was a casualty of Mask’s short development cycle.

Interesting. Personally I thought Okku and One of Many were both better than Gann, even though they had less content (IIRC).

 

[Quillon]

And i like to savor the journey too. I hate how modern games just load you with experience and items to the point you don't even get the change to taste your progress as you go along. If there one thing i really liked about Baldur's Gate 1 is the slow leveling and the fact items had real value. That +2 sword is one of the most memorable find in the game. Really liked that.

I strongly agree with you about the "taste" but I think your diagnosis is mistaken.

Monty Haul or frequent but less impactful leveling as such aren't necessarily problems, BG2 is very much a Monty Haul and the items in it are a lot of fun. And the ur-Fallouts have you leveling up pretty frequently. The main problem with progression in most modern RPGs isn't the proliferation of loot either.

The problem is the utterly braindead MMO-style tiered/levelled loot/enemies system. The archetypical example of this is Assassins Creed (again). Fighting something at level 5 is almost exactly the same as fighting something at level 50, the only thing that's different is a couple of flashy moves you've picked up on the way that look pretty cool but don't ultimately change much.

The reason isn't that there are 50 levels or a mountain of loot. The reason is that everything scales. At level 5 with a level 5 sword you do 5 points of damage per hit and enemies have 20 HP, they'll go down in four hits. At level 50 with a level 50 sword, you do 5000 points of damage per hit and enemies have 20000 HP and they still go down in four hits. There's no difference. Most of the time the enemies are simply level-scaled variants of each other too.

The main consequence is that it forces you to grind in order to upgrade your gear, because if you don't, you end up doing, say, 100 points of damage per hit instead of 5000, and the enemy that was supposed to go down in four hits suddenly takes you 200 hits and you spend, like, 15 minutes whittling him down. This feeds back to the proliferation of cookie-cutter/proc generated quests that provide the grist for your mill to grind, and to the massive proliferation of gear that's identical in every way except cosmetics and level.

The other consequence is that it lets the devs force your progression in an ostensibly open-world game. Sure, you can technically go anywhere from day one, but wander off the beaten path and you'll face mooks that will splat you into paste with a single hit while you have to hit them 1000 times to bring them down.

So I don't care how often or how rarely you level, or even about how much or how blingy loot there is, if this type of unholy "progression" can be avoided. More lateral progression, less vertical progression, less numbers bloat plox. This is one thing both Pillars of Eternities got right by the way -- items stay viable for a long time and there is a good balance between vertical and lateral progression.

Its really strange seeing Tim Cain complain about attributes with 10 stages being too mushy that he can't tell the difference between 6 & 7 luck then making it 5 stages in TOW and then not using PoE's 5 stage item upgrade system in favor of levelled loot...