George Ziets opening a new RPG studio - Digimancy Entertainment

[luj1]

if you cut combat from PST it would turn into a lame visual novel. No one would've talked about it a couple of years after release, let alone 20.

Combat (or any other substitute mechanical gameplay) makes the game.

its core gameplay

no different in tabletop which came from wargaming

mechanical combat layer came first

 

[luj1]

I thought you played Planescape: Torment and therefore knew what you were signing up to with Disco Elysium

you are another one of these fucking retards who never played PST

PST is trash mob galore. wave after wave of trash mobs

Disco has no combat, no exploration and fake choices

 

[The_Mask]

I thought you played Planescape: Torment and therefore knew what you were signing up to with Disco Elysium

you are another one of these fucking retards who never played PST

PST is trash mob galore. wave after wave of trash mobs

Disco has no combat, no exploration and fake choices

You're starting to become aggressively retarded.

 

[mediocrepoet]

I thought you played Planescape: Torment and therefore knew what you were signing up to with Disco Elysium

you are another one of these fucking retards who never played PST

PST is trash mob galore. wave after wave of trash mobs

Disco has no combat, no exploration and fake choices

You're starting to become aggressively retarded.

"Starting to"...

 

[Harthwain]

You are another one of these fucking retards who never played PST

PST is trash mob galore. wave after wave of trash mobs

Disco has no combat, no exploration and fake choices

Talk about being retarded... Yeah, I know PST has shit combat (because, you know, I played it?). I am the one who keeps reminding everyone of that every time someone says "Disco has no [shitty] combat, therefore it's shit/not an RPG". Whatever, you confirmed you're not worth my attention.

 

[The_Mask]

I've known him for half a decade now, so I got used to his bullshit, but even for his usual dumb teenager shit, he's starting to slip into a spiral of trashtacular dementia right now.

 

[mediocrepoet]

More on topic, I hope Digimancy comes out with something interesting. I've liked what I've seen of Ziets' work on other projects, so I've been curious what he'd deliver, whether it's something that's up my alley or not.

 

[luj1]

having a bunch of Codexers (of questionable taste, I've come to find) raving about it.

they are raving cause art + setting is masterfully done

gameplay itself is paper thin. even for an adventure game

adventure games are more than clicking dialogue choices. Disco is a CYOA booklet

 

[Roguey]

You guys are something else. As if the combat wasn't by far the worst thing in MotB and everyone didn't only like it as a storyfag game. Narrative has always been George's strength.

If the game is gonna be bad it's because of currentyear wokery, not because it's a hardcore storyfag game. (which btw is also true for the #1 Codex RPG. Seethe.)

I enjoyed Mask of the Betrayer's pacing, which was superior to Torment's. It would have been a lesser game if it had no combat at all.

 

[Bad Sector]

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

AFAIK while this really depends on the artist, in general artists start with a base mesh that was made by "pushing vertices", so they do both.

The auto-retopo tools can be ok for static geometry but they wont make good results for animation and even for static geometry they can generate inefficient results. However there are tools that while not fully automatic, can make the process a matter of minutes with the end result only needing small tweaks, if at all (EDIT: though with modern hardware these inefficiencies do not really matter much so at least for static geometry it is fine).

(normal baking is a more annoying process though, which is why some time ago i wrote my own tool for that which automates the process - though TBH i only compared it to what you'd need to do with Blender, i don't know what other programs do)

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.

Shadowrun Returns that was mentioned before would be such a case for story-oriented games. Also perhaps something like classic Wizardry (though i'd point to one of the modern incarnations instead of the Apple 2/DOS ones) for combat-oriented games. Something like Fallout 1 but with modern tools may also fit (so perhaps something like a smaller Atom RPG - Atom RPG is not only much bigger than Fallout 1 but IIRC it has a lot of unique assets).

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

As a game it'd be fine, though most likely too basic nowadays (which is why i mentioned the modern incarnations instead), but its development process was very unique and wouldn't be helpful to judge things nowadays (originally written for fun in a university, made in BASIC and then rewritten in Pascal, the developers had to wait for tools to become available, etc - a ton of things that just wouldn't apply to modern gamedev even if we ignore the massive differences in available resources and tools nowadays).

is that why it looks like a java game from 2006

I never claimed they allocated their resources optimally, just that they have them :-P.

 

[jackofshadows]

Reading the whole thread > talk about publisher > fanta says be anything but Paradox > damn, I think he's 100% right, just not fucking Paradox please > ... > total disaster.

It's funny and sad at the same time. I still think we might see something relatively ambitious from this studio but currently it looks rather hopeless.

 

[Russia is over. The end.]

Ambitious is orthogonal to the quality axis.

 

[IHaveHugeNick]

You guys are something else. As if the combat wasn't by far the worst thing in MotB and everyone didn't only like it as a storyfag game. Narrative has always been George's strength.

This doesn't even logically follow, he was on one game with shitty combat therefore everything he does for the next 20 years needs to have a shitty combat? Plus it's like you haven't heard bold marketing claims about "muh deep narrative-focused innovative experience" a thousand times already. 100% of time it turns out that without good gameplay loop even the best writing falls flat.

 

[Nano]

Here's an idea for a satisfying gameplay loop: instead of combat, space out the storyfag parts of your game with porn scenes.

 

[Infinitron]

Heh. It's obviously true that Codexers prefer story-driven RPGs over other types, but they don't want to be explicitly told that. Makes it sound try-hard.

 

[Sentinel]

Go Ziets, show 'em how it's done!

 

[fantadomat]

Heh. It's obviously true that Codexers prefer story-driven RPGs over other types, but they don't want to be explicitly told that. Makes it sound try-hard.

Yes,writing is the most important shit in RPGs. Combatsoyboyz are just dumb losers.

 

[IHaveHugeNick]

It's a false dichotomy because you can be a story-driven enjoyer and combat-enjoyer all at the same time.

 

[santino27]

One should be great, but the other at least needs to be serviceable. Mix and match according to preference.

 

[Viata]

One should be great, but the other at least needs to be serviceable

Yeah, combat should be great.

 

[Quillon]

It's a false dichotomy because you can be a story-driven enjoyer and combat-enjoyer all at the same time.

obv the case for most; I don't see people here eating up CYOA/telltale games or whatever. disco being the exception with its cleverly used RPG features + standing on the coattails of PST, now in turn sawya will use disco & gamepass to get away with his even less of an RPG gaym

 

[Immortal]

One should be great, but the other at least needs to be serviceable. Mix and match according to preference.

This.
Games with shitty combat are often times still really fun to play.

You can call out a game for having a poor design but if it's still fun to exploit and abuse (Arcanum, IE-Games, NWN, blah blah) no harm no foul.
This is the Sawyer trap where he constantly strives for the perfect design, because well designed = fun, r-r-right?!

EDIT

As an Aside though:
Most Codexers seem to have allowance for mediocre combat systems if there's some agency or character input into it.. but will not suffer a cringefest / garbage story.

 

[The Wall]

Most Codexers wanna play good game with immersive sim lvl of world simulation sitting on the shoulders of PnP level of RPG systems placed in open world setting which is interesting and believable, told through believable and interesting story and characters. They would swollow graphics lvl of Fallout 3/Gothic 2 - no problem. Have as little bugs and as much different weapons and spells

And this isn't just Codexers, monks from remote digital RPG monastery. No, itz millions of players. People are hungry for Skyrim-like made by Troika-like. Kingdom Come and ELEX prove that. Demand for AA hardcore Skyrim++ is astronomical

That's why Monomyth and Kingdom Come 2 will do well, and why Elden Ring did ASTRONOMICALLY WELL. 20.000.000+ sold copies on Steam alone

 

[Bad Sector]

Most Codexers seem to have allowance for mediocre combat systems if there's some agency or character input into it.. but will not suffer a cringefest / garbage story.

I think it depends on what the game is trying to do in the first place (and on the personal taste of the player of course), i don't think most people would have the same expectations when it comes to story from a dungeon crawler ala Wizardry that doesn't even pretend to use "story" more than set dressing than they'd have from an RPG that hypes their world, characters, story, etc.

For example when i played Starcrawlers i didn't care that much about the plot but for Mass Effect it was mostly the plot that kept my interest.

 

[The Wall]

Game from my previous post shouldn't be Zeits first game thou. Zeits should make something like....Guild 2, Majesty or Disco Elysium. RPG mixed with other genre, in new and innovative way

Free idea: mix isometric perspective with horror, murder mystery adventure-rpg game and Stronghold castle management set in XV century Bulgaria