George Ziets opening a new RPG studio - Digimancy Entertainment

[IHaveHugeNick]

On the plus side maybe this gives us a shot for Ziets-led Wasteland 4.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

Talking about years in development instead of total man hours is kind of dumb. No kidding Underrail took 7 years to make when it was one guy doing everything.

Manhours isn't any better.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mythical_Man-Month

This is from the 70s though. Software development has slightly changed since then (even since 1995 when the 3rd edition was published). I doubt an extra programmer would've helped DW Bradley push out Wizardry 6 any faster, but the idea that a game on the scope of Cyberpunk 2077 or Starfield would take the same amount of time regardless of manpower is absurd.

The idea still applies exactly the same. Each individual developer(programmer or not) contributes far less in AAA teams than a single developer in a small team. Call it whatever you want: cost of communication, overhead, corporate bureaucracy, ...

Pop quiz: How many times have you guys been at work and had nothing to do because you were waiting on someone else to finish something before you could begin? This is a problem nearly everyone working at a larger company will face.

This can be alleviated to some degree, but it becomes obvious in the end product in something that's expected to be coherent like a videogame. How many modern games have you played that feel disjointed, jarring in how certain elements feel completely disconnected from each other? As if separate teams made them?

In my experience from years of working at both small shops and massive corporations(US government is a corporation, right?), the ideal individual team size is about 15. Every person you add after that is just reducing the overall productivity, and especially nowadays, adding risk of conflict. I assume this is somewhat related to Dunbar's number.

 

[<3sRichardSimmons]

No one's arguing that there isn't a loss of individual productivity as you ramp up in team size, that's pretty self-evident. They're just saying that in 1995 a game could be made with 1 environmental artist because they only had to make ~ 200 assets and the complexity was relatively low. Expecting that same artist to be able to handle ~5000 assets with a much higher degree of complexity all in the same time frame is stupid though.

 

[LudensCogitet]

Why are people forgeting all technological advantages that Devs today have and Devs 20 years ago didn't have, that this disparity doesn't exist? It's like getting to the Moon. You were able to do it back when computing power of entire NASA was lesser then today's iPhone. How? Answer is simple. Total Societal Decline

The Wall is currently rampaging through this thread and I'm going to go cry into an American flag while watching 1980's Radio Shack commercials.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

No one's arguing that there isn't a loss of individual productivity as you ramp up in team size, that's pretty self-evident. They're just saying that in 1995 a game could be made with 1 environmental artist because they only had to make ~ 200 assets and the complexity was relatively low. Expecting that same artist to be able to handle ~5000 assets with a much higher degree of complexity all in the same time frame is stupid though.

...But that's not true at all though?
Making assets has gotten far easier, not harder.

Artists never had an issue making those "complex" assets, the problem was always working around technical constraints put on them. DCC tools have massively matured since 1995 to the point where they're unrecognizable. UV unwrapping a model in '95 was an all day process, now you just click a button and maybe tweak it a bit afterwards. Textures? Get drawing by hand, son. Now you just pop open substance or similar... and that's if we're pretending artists ignore the thousands of free, ready-made materials they can just import.

Ask a modern 3D character modeler how he'd feel about making characters by pushing vertices rather than digital sculpting(with auto-retopo!) sometime.

 

[Brancaleone]

Total Societal Decline

Brought about largely by graphics-whores.

 

[The Wall]

Agreed with Rusty. All "reasons" why good RPG/games output in America is today lower and slower then 20 years ago reek of sophistry to me. All the same limitations have teams in Eastern Europe and Japan. Where is American Elden Ring? Where is American Kingdom Come?

Total Societal Decline

Brought about largely by graphics-whores.

Very much agreed. Why modern indies either chace 70s 2bit graphics or try to outshine latest AAA? Make games on Fallout 3/ Skyrim graphical level. No need to have better graphics for your first game. Have better art style

 

[rusty_shackleford]

Where is American Kingdom Come?

Kingdom Come is European Skyrim

 

[Harthwain]

An RPG that isn't small scale [...]

Out of curiosity, what would be an example of "small scale" RPG? Could you name a specific title from the past? It'd help giving a better picture.

 

[The Wall]

Maybe real indie RPG renaissance is ahead of us. There are bunch of promising indies in the work: Monomyth, Zodiac Legion, Archaelund...

Things are much brighter then they seem. I'll make thread about it. There are like at least 10 good-great RPGs that will release in next 2 years. George Zeits' game is not counted because about it we still know nothing

 

[rusty_shackleford]

Very much agreed. Why modern indies either chace 70s 2bit graphics or try to outshine latest AAA? Make games on Fallout 3/ Skyrim graphical level. No need to have better graphics for your first game. Have better art style

Because the same artist capable of producing an Oblivion asset can most likely make something higher quality in less time.
There seems to be a bit of confusion as if there's a sliding scale of how much effort assets take to make by how much they look like games of a certain era, and it's wrong. Oblivion artists were probably spending hours looking for triangles to remove from their models, optimizing low poly-models for animation that didn't look awful, etc., Textures all downscaled to fit into tight VRAM budgets, and so forth.

 

[Immortal]

No one's arguing that there isn't a loss of individual productivity as you ramp up in team size, that's pretty self-evident. They're just saying that in 1995 a game could be made with 1 environmental artist because they only had to make ~ 200 assets and the complexity was relatively low. Expecting that same artist to be able to handle ~5000 assets with a much higher degree of complexity all in the same time frame is stupid though.

...But that's not true at all though?
Making assets has gotten far easier, not harder.

Artists never had an issue making those "complex" assets, the problem was always working around technical constraints put on them. DCC tools have massively matured since 1995 to the point where they're unrecognizable. UV unwrapping a model in '95 was an all day process, now you just click a button and maybe tweak it a bit afterwards. Textures? Get drawing by hand, son. Now you just pop open substance or similar... and that's if we're pretending artists ignore the thousands of free, ready-made materials they can just import.

Ask a modern 3D character modeler how he'd feel about making characters by pushing vertices rather than digital sculpting(with auto-retopo!) sometime.

No 3D Modeller I know of uses auto topology tools - especially out of ZBrush.
There are a ton of auto-topology plugins out there for Maya / Blender but none that I've seen catch on in any meaningful way for non-static objects.

Topology painting has gotten easier but your way overselling it IMO, all 3D modellers who are above hobbyist skill level will manually redo the topology of their sculpts / models especially for clean edge loops or high traffic spots that have a lot of weight & morph influences, but that usually means redoing the entire thing so you have consistent edge loop across the mesh.

Then you have Weight Painting, texture painting (full PBR / Metal pipeline, or worse), pivot point helpers, million other things im not listing, ect, just for the mesh, doesn't include rigging / animating / physics / ect.

The tools are getting better and faster - but so is the work / complexity of asset pipelines.
I think you are way underselling the difficulty / time to create art assets today. If it really was that easy, you'd see a lot more indie games do it.

 

[LudensCogitet]

What indies need to do is stop worrying about "modern standards" and stop being shackled by nostalgia. Take advantage of the new tools, but choose an art style and game scope commensurate with the amount of time and energy your team actually has. We need to stop being afraid of "low poly" assets, "short" games, etc.

That means BOTH being willing to take advantage of these things while also not needing to cloak them in some kind of "retro" aesthetic.

 

[Harthwain]

What indies need to do is stop worrying about "modern standards" and stop being shackled by nostalgia. Take advantage of the new tools, but choose an art style and game scope commensurate with the amount of time and energy your team actually has. We need to stop being afraid of "low poly" assets, "short" games, etc.

This. Deep Rock Galactic is low poly, but it only adds charm to the game, because the developers knew how to make it work to their advantage and the game itself is the best co-op game I've seen since Left 4 Dead.

 

[Viata]

An RPG that isn't small scale [...]

Out of curiosity, what would be an example of "small scale" RPG? Could you name a specific title from the past? It'd help giving a better picture.

Wizardry 1? It's small scale, not saying it was easy to make, btw.

 

[CyberWhale]

Not surprised how it ended, unfortunately. Remember devs (new ones, and those starting fresh in a small studio)

- don't go making something super revolutionary (find an existing niche instead and try to cater to it)
- don't do huge and complex games (start simple and build up from there)

He should have made a visual novel with choices and consequences/branching narratives and some unique non-anime artstyle, not longer than 10h. Making some grandiose spiritual sequel to never existing BG3 with RTS elements was a huge mistake, even if they've changed course eventually.

 

[MRY]

I'm unaware of George ever making a political utterance, and it's unfortunate to see the best side of the Codex (its ability to rigorously dissect game design) being distorted by the need for some to turn every thread into a battleground against the absent strawmen of cultural decline.

The part of this thread that is at least somewhat engaging is the discussion over whether game development is easier now (surely the answer is yes) and how it could be that game development is nevertheless slower and costlier now. I think a big part of it is that more games are being made, so the limited number of savants who go into game development are spread thinner. And the kinds of RPGs the Codex likes aren't commercially valuable enough to attract savants with money (in contrast to, say, giant AAA franchises).

I really do think that focusing on savants is extremely important. Most of the games mentioned in this thread (and certainly AOD, Underrail, and Disco Elysium) are savant products. (I think George is a savant, too, but he's unusual in that he's mostly ever just been a corporate cog.) For savants doing RPG development, commercial success is never going to be an adequate motivator. (I'm not even sure it is for a developer making a game with a higher potential upside, like Stardew Valley.) It may be a necessary condition to survival for some savants, but almost always, they could make much more money doing anything other than developing an RPG. Something else has to draw them to the project.

So when you say, "Rather than making a full-featured narrative RPG, George should make a visual novel" or "rather than working with friends he can meet in person, he should offshore to strangers in Europe," you are failing to account for the "why" factor. I'm sure he'd rather succeed at making some game than fail to make any game at all. But that's a hindsight proposition. From a forward-looking standpoint, he would never say, "Yeah, I should walk away from making full-featured RPGs at Microsoft/inXile to make a visual novel via Bulgarian labor." What motivates the sweat, toil, and opportunity cost of most indie game dev is the possibility that you will be able to make your dream game on your dream terms. It never works out quite that way, but that's the motivator.

Finally, having now spent a decade making Fallen Gods with mostly European teammates, it has its downsides as well as its upsides. Even setting aside some of the more extreme cases (which can happen anywhere), it just sucks that there's effectively no chance of ever sitting down and having a beer with your colleagues. By contrast, the pixel artist is in the U.S., and he and I have broken bread many times. I wish I could do the same with my Polish factotum or Swedish composer, and I think if I could've done so with some of the other European team members, some challenges would've been avoided or mitigated.

 

[Jedi Master Radek]

UV unwrapping a model in '95 was an all day process, now you just click a button and maybe tweak it a bit afterwards

It works well for simple objects, but complex ones needs to be adjusted by hand.

Textures? Get drawing by hand, son. Now you just pop open substance or similar.

Implying that using substance designer does not involve skills or time.

nd that's if we're pretending artists ignore the thousands of free, ready-made materials they can just import

Which does not include everything you want and using them may make your game look like an asset flip?

Ask a modern 3D character modeler how he'd feel about making characters by pushing vertices rather than digital sculpting(with auto-retopo!) sometime.

Digital sculpt a house for us Rusty. Sculpting works best for organic objects, you can't sculpt everything. It also involve a lot of polygons and automating simplification of sculpted models doesn't' always produce the best results.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

It works well for simple objects, but complex ones needs to be adjusted by hand.

Works perfectly fine nearly all the time if you've used any modern UV unwrapping tools.

Implying that using substance designer does not involve skills or time.

Significantly less time than doing it by hand.

Which does not include everything you want and using them may make your game look like an asset flip?

Why would materials make your game look like an asset flip? Do you know what a material is?

Digital sculpt a house for us Rusty.

I'd use the hard surface modeling tools which have advanced greatly since '95 too. But what would I know, I've only been doing it in my spare time for about 20 years now and have gotten to watch the technology advance firsthand, directly contributed to Blender many times, etc.,

and automating simplification of sculpted models doesn't' always produce the best results.

Again, what year is it?
Many, many major devs use remeshing tools like Simplygon for their static geometry.

 

[luj1]

https://digimancygames.com/news/companyupdatejune2022

Digimancy Company Update – June 2022​

It’s 2022… two and a half years after Digimancy first came into being… and I probably should have written something like this sooner.

Since this is our first news update for Digimancy Entertainment, I thought I’d talk about the origins of the studio and what our team is trying to build.

The seeds for what would become Digimancy Entertainment were planted back in 2017. At the time, I had been in the games industry for about sixteen years and had gotten to know Kevin Saunders while working together on Neverwinter Nights 2: Mask of the Betrayer and again on Torment: Tides of Numenera. We were joined on Torment by our fellow co-founder, Steve Dobos, who was Torment’s lead engineer and had worked with Kevin years before.

As a team with complementary talents, we recognized that we had a partnership founded on mutual trust and respect, and we believed that by working together, we could build a game studio that would be dedicated to making the games we love most - narrative-focused RPGs.

But “narrative-focused” can mean a lot of different things to different people, so what does it mean to us?

Most importantly, it means we’re a narrative-first studio. When we design our games, we start with a story or character experience. Then we develop game systems to bring our narrative elements to life. The opposite approach is more common in the games industry… and sometimes systems and narrative are developed separately, under the assumption that certain systems (e.g., combat) need to be in every RPG. However, we think a narrative-first perspective can lead to more innovative and immersive games and mechanics.

For us, player choice is inherently tied to narrative games. Many of our team members are rooted in the tabletop tradition, where story isn’t just a linear script – it’s a give-and-take between the storyteller and the players. No medium besides games can easily achieve that, and we want player choices to have real, game-changing consequences in our RPGs.

We also want to transport players to new and original worlds and evoke a sense of wonder and discovery. My own best experiences with games were the ones that introduced me to unfamiliar settings where I felt like a stranger in a strange land. In the best cases, all the elements of the game worked together to transport me to a different reality. That’s what we want our games to do, especially the ones developed for our own internal IPs.

As a studio, we’ve had our ups and downs. At the end of 2021, our publisher-funded project was cancelled. This isn’t uncommon in the industry, but it’s never a fun experience for a team that pours its creative heart into a game.

Nevertheless, we’re still here and hard at work on new things. One of those projects is our own internal RPG, a single-player game set in an original IP. Our team is also developing pitches for new RPGs and RPG-adjacent games. Strong pitches can come from anyone on the Digimancy team. We encourage all our team members to develop a pitch or contribute to someone else’s.We’re collaborating on a couple projects with other studios too, and we’re continuing to look for development partnerships with publishers and IP holders who might be interested in working with our experienced team of RPG devs.

As soon as we can share more about the games we’re making, we will. In the meantime, I want to thank our industry allies, mentors, and partners, as well as our friends, family, and fans. Our journey is just beginning, and we’re happy to have you with us.

so much "narrative" BS

we could build a game studio that would be dedicated to making the games we love most - narrative-focused RPGs.

gg

 

[luj1]

and sometimes systems and narrative are developed separately, under the assumption that certain systems (e.g., combat) need to be in every RPG. However, we think a narrative-first perspective can lead to more innovative and immersive games and mechanics.

haha look at these cucks

another unfun game incoming

ziets is soyer 2.0 or worse

 

[The_Mask]

Why are people forgeting all technological advantages that Devs today have and Devs 20 years ago didn't have, that this disparity doesn't exist? It's like getting to the Moon. You were able to do it back when computing power of entire NASA was lesser then today's iPhone. How? Answer is simple. Total Societal Decline

Dude... it's just the fact that they had/have ESO still going and people are still paying/playing it. As a business model, it's much better to focus on a steady income stream, than something that resembles a leapfrog.
You seem to be comparing two markets without realizing the cvasidimensionality between them. And not only that, you're also not understanding that mobile games have eaten a slice of the pie since 2012. And ON TOP of that, the US Dollar (much like 99% of the currencies on this planet) don't have the same values they did in the fall of '98.

It's like you're connecting dots in your head to get the silhouette that you want, just to call your point "art".

And the worst part is that you're expecting everyone to smile and nod along with you.

 

[luj1]

Ghoulishness about a dev studio run by a guy who's a good person and has made at least one truly great game (MOTB) strikes me as bad form. Hard to make games, especially if you're not trying to follow a cookie-cutter mold, which I don't think George is.

yes

it will be another creative disaster

all this BS about story over combat is bad news

Idk whats worse, Disco-likes or strategy hybrids

 

[luj1]

What was last good cRPG or just RPG to come out of America? Pillars 2, four years ago?

lol

 

[luj1]

Wake me up when that great eastern block RPG comes along.

Underrail