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George Ziets opening a new RPG studio - Digimancy Entertainment

Tigranes

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As for Ziets, I'm not sure he'll ever create a substantial RPG again.
Well, based on his pronouns, we now know he likes women, based on Avellone's trajectory, liking women = literally Hitler on the gaming industry, so, if you run a simulation using all the woke cancellation parameters, there is a 105% chance of him ending like a rapist white supremacist, so yeah, you maybe are more right than you suspect.

I don't know why I would give a rat's ass about whatever all that is. I care if they make good games. Avellone stopped doing any major work on any substantial RPG years ago, unfortunately, and that happened way before the Codex became obsessed with pronouns.
 

Bester

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Ziets is a guy that wrote that NN2 expansion people said is good.
I have no interest in Codex politics or edginess, but MOTB is not "good," it's amazing, despite having as its base an engine with a terrible camera, mediocre (at best) combat, and unappealing visuals. The Codex put it at #12!
If it's so good, how come nobody's porting it to a playable engine? A lot of useless projects out there to port "BG2 to DA engine" (ugh, WHY?), or Fallout 2 to FNV (ugh WHY, do the opposite).

I've not heard that Motb is good outside the Codex. I haven't played it myself, cause the engine is unplayable, but it begs a few questions... If it's so good, how come nobody ported it to NWN1 engine? Like they're doing with Dark Sun, for example.
 

luj1

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I don't know why I would give a rat's ass about whatever all that is. I care if they make good games. Avellone stopped doing any major work on any substantial RPG years ago, unfortunately, and that happened way before the Codex became obsessed with pronouns.

You mean before *the world* became obsessed with pronouns. The Codex merely reacted, just like the rest of the world. But, like Infinitron, you blame the Codex because you are spineless.

There is a clear correlation between lack of talent and SJWs. Because these people aren't gamers first.
 

Bester

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As for Ziets, I'm not sure he'll ever create a substantial RPG again.
Well, based on his pronouns, we now know he likes women, based on Avellone's trajectory, liking women = literally Hitler on the gaming industry, so, if you run a simulation using all the woke cancellation parameters, there is a 105% chance of him ending like a rapist white supremacist, so yeah, you maybe are more right than you suspect.

I don't know why I would give a rat's ass about whatever all that is. I care if they make good games. Avellone stopped doing any major work on any substantial RPG years ago, unfortunately, and that happened way before the Codex became obsessed with pronouns.

You mean before *the world* became obsessed with pronouns. The Codex merely reacted, just like the rest of the world. But, like Infinitron, you blame the Codex because you are spineless.

There is a clear correlation between lack of talent and SJWs. Because these people aren't gamers first.
SJWs came at the same time as the video games market expanded. There's not necessarily a correlation you're talking about.
Market expands - generic marvel shit sells best, gotta make shit product for the sheep.

Although it's a different story with our RPGs. They're just shit, even though they didn't want the mass audience.
But the market becomes big - a lot of new specialists coming in for the money, not for the games - they make shit games. Probably. It's a guess.
In the 90s, if people were in the gamedev industry, they were in love with games. Not anymore, I think.
 
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Gargaune

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If it's so good, how come nobody's porting it to a playable engine? A lot of useless projects out there to port "BG2 to DA engine" (ugh, WHY?), or Fallout 2 to FNV (ugh WHY, do the opposite). I've not heard that Motb is good outside the Codex.
You act like rebuilding an RPG campaign were a trivial matter. It's true that MotB is more of a cult classic, possibly due to it being an expansion or maybe due to the original NWN2 failing to capture as dedicated a fanbase, but the lack of a port isn't a reflection of quality. Licensing aside, consider what other game platforms could accommodate MotB, how much effort would be involved and what advantages and disadvantages they would yield. The Infinity Engine, for instance, is notoriously challenging to develop on. And Dragon Age? All that work just to trade off the ruleset for slightly better visuals and controls?

If it's so good, how come nobody ported it to NWN1 engine?
Why would anyone do that? So you can experience MotB with older graphics and less companion control?

I haven't played it myself, cause the engine is unplayable
Excuses. Read the guide in my signature and get to work.
 

Alpan

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Grab the Codex by the pussy Pathfinder: Wrath
Yeah, the NWN2 engine somehow being "bad" is a lazy meme that should die. That may have been true for the initial release window of the game, but it is not representative of reality. I literally have no idea what people are thinking when they say the camera is terrible, except that they probably haven't played it.

There is only one way in which the NWN2 engine is overall worse than NWN1, and that is the usability of its content creation tools. The use of terrain sculpting in NWN2, rather than the tile-based approach in NWN1, is probably the single reason why the NWN2 custom module range is a fraction of that seen in NWN1.
 

Infinitron

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Codex Year of the Donut Serpent in the Staglands Dead State Divinity: Original Sin Project: Eternity Torment: Tides of Numenera Wasteland 2 Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 A Beautifully Desolate Campaign Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Pathfinder: Kingmaker Pathfinder: Wrath I'm very into cock and ball torture I helped put crap in Monomyth


In this casual panel we explore games and developers who faced the difficult challenge of ending their games. The panel will go over the topics such as branching narratives and how multiple endings function, the impression that a game leaves at the end of the experience, and the challenges which were faced in bringing everything together in a conclusive and satisfying manner.

Panelists:
◼️ Annie VanderMeer: https://twitter.com/murderblonde
◼️ Ata Sergey Nowak: https://twitter.com/AtaSergeyNowak
◼️ George Ziets: https://twitter.com/gziets
◼️ Märten Rattasepp: https://twitter.com/Blankest_Space
 
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Ziets is a guy that wrote that NN2 expansion people said is good.
I have no interest in Codex politics or edginess, but MOTB is not "good," it's amazing, despite having as its base an engine with a terrible camera, mediocre (at best) combat, and unappealing visuals. The Codex put it at #12!
If it's so good, how come nobody's porting it to a playable engine? A lot of useless projects out there to port "BG2 to DA engine" (ugh, WHY?), or Fallout 2 to FNV (ugh WHY, do the opposite).

I've not heard that Motb is good outside the Codex. I haven't played it myself, cause the engine is unplayable, but it begs a few questions... If it's so good, how come nobody ported it to NWN1 engine? Like they're doing with Dark Sun, for example.

Most people who made those conversions are just wanting to put something into their CV. Porting others work shows you have skills and discipline, but lack creativity which makes you an ideal candidate for a corporate wageslave. It's known as Abrams style of "creator".
 

Gargaune

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Bioware did this to so they could own the IP, rather than share the profits.
No, I know that, I meant it's not worthwhile for fans to port MotB to the DA platform.

Yeah, the NWN2 engine somehow being "bad" is a lazy meme that should die. That may have been true for the initial release window of the game, but it is not representative of reality. I literally have no idea what people are thinking when they say the camera is terrible, except that they probably haven't played it.
There are aspects of NWN2's camera and character controls that bear legitimate criticism, items that were due more polish and iteration, but they tend to get overstated. It's why I wrote that guide, it's possible to mitigate some of them to the point the game handles tolerably, and there's some genuinely good content on NWN2 that doesn't have to feel like a hassle to experience.

There is only one way in which the NWN2 engine is overall worse than NWN1, and that is the usability of its content creation tools. The use of terrain sculpting in NWN2, rather than the tile-based approach in NWN1, is probably the single reason why the NWN2 custom module range is a fraction of that seen in NWN1.
Not the single reason, no. The Electron Toolset is more powerful across the board but, as such, requires more labour for pretty much all of its content, not just exterior spaces. To make matters worse, it's poorly structured and much less ergonomic than its predecessor, and also particularly brittle, there's bits of it that just don't function anymore.
 

Dexter

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I don't know why I would give a rat's ass about whatever all that is. I care if they make good games. Avellone stopped doing any major work on any substantial RPG years ago, unfortunately, and that happened way before the Codex became obsessed with pronouns.
You're unironically posting that the "Codex" is "obsessed with pronouns" after several versions of a talk from an extremely Cancerous looking "Convention" have been posted in this thread sporting a variety of ugly mugs, that has them splattered across the screen for every participant during every moment of the entire duration of the videos? And aside from that someone apparently found the middle part of the background image below so important, they had to prominently embed it on the left half taking away 50% of the screen space from the talking heads. And you're acting like there's nothing strange or weird about any of that at all, it is the most normal thing in the world, just curious happenstance with obviously no meaning behind it, and anyone pointing this out is apparently being "edgy"? All of this only points to the people behind it obviously just deeply caring about narrative games and nothing else.
adb0e6a0af3ba2a936a04f9e95c414ca5b9dce47.png


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If it's so good, how come nobody's porting it to a playable engine? A lot of useless projects out there to port "BG2 to DA engine" (ugh, WHY?), or Fallout 2 to FNV (ugh WHY, do the opposite).

I've not heard that Motb is good outside the Codex. I haven't played it myself, cause the engine is unplayable, but it begs a few questions... If it's so good, how come nobody ported it to NWN1 engine? Like they're doing with Dark Sun, for example.
MotB is pretty good and one of the main reasons why is because of the Planescape-like lore and world building behind it, but personally I liked Neverwinter Nights 2 well enough too. I see them in the context of being top-down Forgotten Realms CRPGs released in 2006/07, 6-7 years after Baldur's Gate II came out with a bit of a dearth of new similar CRPG titles to take up the mantle (aside from a few console ports like KOTOR 1+2 or Jade Empire) and lots of cancelled projects, 3 years after Black Isle Studios went defunct having released shit like Lionheart or Dark Alliance I/II trying to chase that console audience and with Troika's closure inbetween. Storm of Zehir was also utter shit though.

I never liked the first Neverwinter Nights and its engine, it had the stink of "We have to do 3D now because everyone else is" to it, its main campaign and various features like the companion system were really bad and some were baffling like not being able to see the sky or ceiling. I found NWN2 perfectly playable (after upgrading to a 6600GT specifically because of it, since it ran like shit on the GeForce 4 Ti I had back when I bought it - and it actually looked pretty good for the time it came out compared to the first NWN). So your question of why nobody ported a NWN2 expansion to NWN1 (an older, obviously inferior, worse and worse looking engine) seems kind of baffling.
 
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Nano

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Grab the Codex by the pussy Strap Yourselves In
Show me how terrible the camera is.
Not showing anything because I don't have it installed, but the last time I played a non-evil playthrough I had an issue where Okku the bear would always block part of the camera when playing in third-person mode. And that was only the most dire issue.
 

Alpan

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Grab the Codex by the pussy Pathfinder: Wrath
Not showing anything because I don't have it installed, but the last time I played a non-evil playthrough I had an issue where Okku the bear would always block part of the camera when playing in third-person mode. And that was only the most dire issue.

Fine, I don't necessarily disagree with the third-person aspect of the camera (the character cam) being bad, because I never did use it myself. But the strategy and exploration cams enable, at the very least, an IE-like experience.
 

Gargaune

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Show me how terrible the camera is.
Not showing anything because I don't have it installed, but the last time I played a non-evil playthrough I had an issue where Okku the bear would always block part of the camera when playing in third-person mode. And that was only the most dire issue.
What could've possibly possessed you to play NWN2 in Character mode?! Here I am, thinking you're all whining that you can't play NWN2 as comfortably as the Infinity Engine, when what you lot want is Skyrim. Much RPG, very Codex.
 

Dexter

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I literally have no idea what people are thinking when they say the camera is terrible, except that they probably haven't played it.
NWN2's camera and controls *are* horrible. Let's not rewrite history here.
Work(s)ed for me. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I obviously played top down like the Infinity Engine games, I remember some Camera Modes being worse than others (those chasing your character around) but don't remember what I played with ~15 years ago, I guess Top Down or Free?
iu


Not showing anything because I don't have it installed, but the last time I played a non-evil playthrough I had an issue where Okku the bear would always block part of the camera when playing in third-person mode. And that was only the most dire issue.
Seems to also work well enough from what I can see from first look at Random uTubers:


I guess it bears pointing out that NWN2 didn't even have a "Character Mode" camera Option till Patch 1.10/MotB released: https://nwn2.fandom.com/wiki/Camera#Post_1.10_Patch

And:
What I want is Dragon Age
Only came out 3/2 years later after NWN2/MotB, so its influence was obviously Infinity Engine and not Dragon Age.

Also:
:rpgcodex:
 

Gargaune

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But the strategy and exploration cams enable, at the very least, an IE-like experience.
For the record, while I agree and I've made the case that NWN2's controls can be dealt with, if I were to make an Enhanced Edition I'd start with these:
- unlock Strategy camera pan range from controlled characters;
- add camera edge turning speed slider (this is already in the .ini, but not applied in-game);
- write companion positions to save file;
- add party formations and orientation;
- fix 3D party selection bug;
- fix group selection to persist past area load and dialogue;
- fix Strategy camera ground elevation bug;
- extend party controls to all summons and associates;
- make Minimap toggle persistent;
- make Quickcast automatically open on applicable characters;
- (possibly) revert NWN2 context menu to NWN1 radial menu design.

And fix the clock bug and update character head models, obviously, but those aren't controls-related.

The next thing I'd do is lock Swen Vincke in a basement and not let him out until he completed MotB. And then I still wouldn't let him out until he also completed his BG3 EA afterwards. By the time he got back to Larian, he'd whip his own staff with toilet chains.
 

DeepOcean

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As for Ziets, I'm not sure he'll ever create a substantial RPG again.
Well, based on his pronouns, we now know he likes women, based on Avellone's trajectory, liking women = literally Hitler on the gaming industry, so, if you run a simulation using all the woke cancellation parameters, there is a 105% chance of him ending like a rapist white supremacist, so yeah, you maybe are more right than you suspect.

I don't know why I would give a rat's ass about whatever all that is. I care if they make good games. Avellone stopped doing any major work on any substantial RPG years ago, unfortunately, and that happened way before the Codex became obsessed with pronouns.
He was working on Wrath of the righteous and Dying Light 2 for the last few years, some woman that use pronouns on her twitter bio accused him of rape because he dated her and didnt want to continue the relationship, so he was unceremoniously fired from Dying Light 2 and wasnt fired from Wrath of the righteous because it is a low profile niche project but he became persona non grata for those kinds of pronoun pod people and unfortunately, if the pod people dont like you, you have no employment on bigger projects on the gaming industry, so , no, dont expect any big projects from Avellone, even if he wants, that is what I was saying. Nothing of productive come from pod pronoun people that Avellone surrounded himself with, it isnt an obcession or conspiracy theory, just noticing a trend, just look the kind of "games" types like Zoe Quinn does.

Same for Ziets, games arent made by lone persons doing all the work, they are made by teams, last bigger project Ziets worked on was Dungeon Siege 3 and that game had really interesting ideas even if the gameplay was awful but if he is surrounded by pod people now, the chances of him doing something good is near zero.
 

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