George Ziets opening a new RPG studio - Digimancy Entertainment

[Delterius]

since I enjoyed both Pillars of Eternity

not really we have some of those

Torment: Tides of Numenera

now that is a surprise since no one else did, especially not its creators

What do you mean by "especially not its creators"? Do you have a source, since this sounds rather interesting.

I don't but I distinctly remember Brian Fargo saying 'yes I did in fact funnel all my funds to wasteland, especially those of the numenera kickstarter' to himself at a cocktail party.

You're mistaking that for Obsidian and their budget for Tyranny.

As a matter of fact, Shadowlord Feargus Urukheart heard it and they fistbumped each other.

 

[Russia is over. The end.]

On a technical note, it is consensus that both PoEs were successful.

Sawyer himself said that Poe2 flopped, in his recent series of tweets on why he's currently in a deep depression.

you can't enjoy a book that never survived to be on print,

I don't understand what you're saying, but I enjoy books that are being written on fictionpress and OTW and they never even got to a publisher, in fact they're riddled with typos and aren't finished. Not sure what you were saying. Anything can be enjoyed if it's good.

I must be a hated stereotype on the Codex, since I enjoyed both Pillars of Eternity and Torment: Tides of Numenera immensely.

You must be a young guy simply. These are games of your time. Most Codexers grew up on much older games and have better standards.

 

[Butter]

I don't understand what you're saying, but I enjoy books that are being written on fictionpress and OTW and they never even got to a publisher, in fact they're riddled with typos and aren't finished. Not sure what you were saying. Anything can be enjoyed if it's good.

Remember Stormlands, Aliens: Crucible, Black Hound, Van Buren, Torn? You literally can't enjoy games that never ship.

 

[Russia is over. The end.]

I don't understand what you're saying, but I enjoy books that are being written on fictionpress and OTW and they never even got to a publisher, in fact they're riddled with typos and aren't finished. Not sure what you were saying. Anything can be enjoyed if it's good.

Remember Stormlands, Aliens: Crucible, Black Hound, Van Buren, Torn? You literally can't enjoy games that never ship.

All save Van Buren would've sucked cock and balls.

 

[Not.AI]

Most Codexers grew up on much older games and have better standards.

This. So true.

One reason why I for one play fewer games now...and even then fewer hours each. Not only because busy.

 

[Ismaul]

I don't understand what you're saying, but I enjoy books that are being written on fictionpress and OTW and they never even got to a publisher, in fact they're riddled with typos and aren't finished. Not sure what you were saying. Anything can be enjoyed if it's good.

Remember Stormlands, Aliens: Crucible, Black Hound, Van Buren, Torn? You literally can't enjoy games that never ship.

I bet all those experiences made Sawyer neuter himself, move away from his best ideas and play it safe with projects as to not rock the boat and be cancelled.

 

[Delterius]

Sawyer himself said that Poe2 flopped, in his recent series of tweets on why he's currently in a deep depression.

'the games were actually made and implemented'

'actually the game didn't sell'

You do realize both these statements have nothing to do with each other, right?

One thing is a mediocre but well implemented project. Another is wether it sells or not. DA:O is thoroughly mediocre -- and its not even well implemented for what it is -- , but it was the best selling BioWare project of its time. As well as RPG Codex GOTY 2009. Pillars of Eternity 1 and 2 were both well implemented projects. The quality of their implementation, the actual end-result and wether they sell or not to the general public are three distinct things, related towards each other but not determined by one another. An actual good RPG can always sell poorly, and they often did. So if you want to accurately judge wether the developers managed the game well, if their vision for the game was any good and how the market behaved you have to look at these things separately.

Obsidian was always an amateurish studio and making games isn't just having good ideas. You need to decide how far you can go with the man-hours and talent available to you. You have to set up and maintain a pipeline between every work group. Sawyer was good enough at those things that he shipped New Vegas and managed to turn the absolute diasaster that was Ferret's NWN2 into something you can ship without grounds for being sued, eventually leading to something worth salvaging, ie Mask of the Betrayer. If he was a bad project manager he couldn't have done either of those things.

The problem with Pillars is not one of execution. Say what you will about Pillars 1.0 or Patchfinder: Bugmaker, but neither of those releases could compare to the Bugsidian of old. From a technical standpoint Sawyer and co. managed the actual development of the game well enough. Not only did the Pillars ship not sink because of execution, more than that, the game is rather good looking and plays well.

Issue is, its also quite uninspired and that's a problem bigger than Pillars itself. As Obsidian approached being a half way capable company, all the ideas people that made their games notable to the discerning public got fat, lazy and completely disempowered. Avellone was creative lead, but he couldn't speak as an equal to Josh. He was blocked at every turn from rocking the boat too hard and messing with the pipeline. And it is doubtful Fenstermaker could push the Director into taking more risks with the story at all. Even if Sawyer had just implemented a d20 ruleset, both Pillars 1 and 2 would remain 'story driven games' that are really just quite boring. They stand at best as this exploration of what a 'renaissance colonialist setting' could bring to the table, as opposed to regular high fantasy. But not as a cool tale about anything in particular.

 

[fantadomat]

sawyer is a good project manager

Delivering irrelevant boring shit on time is only one of the responsibilities of a manager. Finding/assigning right people for the jobs is another, which he absolutely sucks at. Which is why his games are bad.

Yes,because only the two jobs you talked about are of any importance when making games lol. Games are made by teams,but by star devs,when you create a good team and manage it well,you get games like new vegas lol.

 

[fantadomat]

I must be a hated stereotype on the Codex, since I enjoyed both Pillars of Eternity and Torment: Tides of Numenera immensely.

Do you have a bridge that goes over a train track.....if yes,you know what to do.

 

[Joseph Stalin]

Bester or maybe my glasses aren't coloured pink due to over-exposure to nostalgia. I'm probably older than a significant majority of you gentlemen. As to Josh Sawyer - I get the feeling that a lot of his depression and/or wistfulness have a source outside of video games. Being a historian and a rabid leftist at the same time seems taxing enough already.

 

[Ismaul]

I must be a hated stereotype on the Codex, since I enjoyed both Pillars of Eternity and Torment: Tides of Numenera immensely.

Do you have a bridge that goes over a train track.....if yes,you know what to do.

Sell the bridge?

 

[LESS T_T]

Steve Dobos, another ex-inXile dev, joined the team as tech director: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stevedobos/

He was lead programmer on TToN and also worked on Kevin Saunders' Nexon project.

 

[pomenitul]

TToN2 is going to be awesome.

 

[LESS T_T]

More TToN re-union! Kevin Saunders joined as Production Director: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kevindsaunders/

I am currently Production Director at, and a founding member of, Digimancy Entertainment, an independent video game development studio specializing in role-playing games. The company, which is entirely remote, emphasizes trust, craftsmanship, originality, and humility.

Heather Martin, Senior Engineer, previously worked at Magic Leap: https://www.linkedin.com/in/heather-martin-a2474865/

Experienced Engineer with a demonstrated history of working in the consumer electronics industry. Skilled in C#, Unity3D, and XR research & development.

Former inXile community/PR guy Paul Marzagalli is working with George: https://www.linkedin.com/in/paulmarzagalli/

Consultant

Company Name Digimancy Games
Dates Employed Nov 2019 – Present
Employment Duration 4 mos

- Collaborating with a start-up video game company of industry veterans led by George Ziets on a variety of communications, publisher, and networking projects.

He is now Associate Producer:

- Playing a lead role in the organization and creation of a new title for a major publisher.

- Running point on assembling a world-class team and setting up best practices for a fully remote "studio".

- Cross-discipline work between gamedev and bizdev elements of the company.

 

[LESS T_T]

Oh right a job posting too.

https://remotegamejobs.com/jobs/dig...r-systems-designer-digimancy-games-remote-job

Currently, we are seeking an experienced Senior System Designer to join our team on an unannounced RPG-hybrid.

Knowledge and experience working in a 3D Game Development environment such as Unity, Unreal, CryEngine, Internal Engine, etc. Unity experience is preferred

Real-time combat gameplay experience is a plus

 

[MRY]

More TToN re-union!

As the announcement indicates, Kevin was a part of the team from the beginning -- his role has just been more in the background because of the health issues he posted about. For a while, Kevin was working in my town, so we'd get breakfasts together, and it was really cool to hear him talk about brainstorming with George. Kevin is the soul of discretion, so I never got any specifics or insider intel, but hearing about the approach / process was still great. In some way, I'd say it was like a marriage of hobbyist spirit with professional experience.

 

[DeepOcean]

Games are made by teams,but by star devs.

I agree in part, people sometimes are overhyped but that isnt 100% accurate. Experience counts ALOT, you cant replace people that make rpgs for years with californian danger hairs on minimum wage like Feargus did, the quality of writing dropped at sub Bioware levels (PoE made me appretiate BG 1 more, I didnt know you could get worse than Bioware at making a plot of a game, I was wrong) and dangerously close to Bethesda levels sometimes and that happened when John Gonzalez, Avellone and Ziets left. At that time, Obsidian fanboys argued that wouldnt be a big thing because Obsidian was a team of dozens of people and they must have/find other experienced writers and gameplay designers, right? yeah... that turned out so well.

 

[StaticSpine]

Real-time combat gameplay experience is a plus

 

[Potato Canon]

Heather Martin has quite the AR/VR focused resume. Interesting.

 

[Roguey]

Finding out it was a strategy-RPG already made me lose interest, real-time just punctuates it.

 

[Nano]

Confirmation that George plays PF:KM without the turn-based mod.

 

[DeepOcean]

Confirmation that George plays PF:KM without the turn-based mod.

I totally understand that decision, he must be as much as a proficient pro RPG player as Avellone himself was when playing Arcanum.

 

[sser]

could be really slow real-time ya never know

 

[InD_ImaginE]

So the team is completely remote huh

Would be interesting to see how that would turn out, project-wise. Video game development have been infamous to be less than reliable management wise (missed deadline, crunch/excessive overtime, still shipping with questionable quality and bugs even after all of those).

Remote working is certainly not going to help with that I think? Especially when you are going full production after getting the funding.

 

[CyberWhale]

Finding out it was a strategy-RPG already made me lose interest, real-time just punctuates it.

I think he's making what he envisioned for BG3 (I think he mentioned something similar in one of his MattChats). Wish him the best in chasing his dream, but not all that interested personally.